The History of Protestantism |
Table of Contents
BOOK FOURTEENTH
RISE AND ESTABLISHMENT OF PROTESTANTISM AT GENEVA.
| Chapter 1 | . . . | GENEVA: THE CITY AND ITS HISTORY. Protestantism finds a New Centre — The Lake Leman — Geneva — Its Site — Its Diminutive Size — Sncers — History of Geneva — Four Names, Julius Caesar, Honorius, Charlemagne, the Reformation, indicate the Four Stages of its History — The Bishop its First Ruler — Intrigues of the Dukes of Savoy — Pope Martin V. takes from the Genevese the right of Electing their Bishop — Exercises it himself — Appoints a Prince of Savoy to be Bishop of Geneva — Its Independence on the point of being Extinguished — New Life — War between the Prince-Bishop and the Citizens — Bonivard — His Picture of the Popes — Berthelier — His Devotion to his Country — Levrier — His Love of Justice — The War Then and Now — Wonderful Preservation of Geneva's Independence — A Higher Liberty Approaching. |
| Chapter 2 | . . . | GENEVESE MARTYRS OF LIBERTY. Berthelier — Apprehended — Beheaded — His Remains publicly Exposed — Bonivard — Banished — Castle of Chillon — Bishop of Geneva Dies — His Remorse — Levrier — His Arrest by the Duke — Carried to the Castle of Bonne — His Execution — What Victories of Brute Force Lead to — Momentary Triumph of the Duke — He Flees from Geneva never to Return — Lessons learned by Genevese Exiles — They Return to Act them out — Geneva's Gates Open towards the Rising Sun. |
| Chapter 3 | . . . | THE REFORM COMMENCED IN LAUSANNE AND ESTABLISHED IN MORAT
AND NEUCHATEL. Geneva on the Road to Liberty – Her Advance – There needs the Sword of the Spirit to Conquer her Highest Liberty – Farel – No Second Field of Kappel – Farel goes to Aigle – Acts as Schoolmaster – Begins to Preach – Commotion – Retires from Aigle – Leaves behind him a little Reformed Church – Goes to Morat–Then an Important Town – Eventually won to the Gospel – Attempts Lausanne – Goes to Neuchatel – Crowds flock to his Preaching – Plants the Reformed Faith at Meiry in the neighbouring Jura – Returns to Neuchatel – Carries its Reformation by a Coup. |
| Chapter 4 | . . . | TUMULTS – SUCCESSES – TOLERATION. Second Vote on Religion at Neuchatel – Vallangin – Disgraceful Trick – Popular Tempest – Triumph of Reform – Farel turns his eye toward Geneva – Evangelises at Orbe – Makes a Beginning – First Communion at Orbe – Peter Viret – His Character – Goes to Grandson – A Battle in the Church – The Affair carried to the Conference at Bern – Protestant Bern and Catholic Friburg agree on a Policy of Toleration – Great Success of Farel – He turns toward Geneva. |
| Chapter 5 | . . . | FABEL ENTERS GENEVA. Basin of the Rhone – Leman Lake – Grandeur of its Environs – The Region in Former Times a Stronghold of Popery – Geneva – The Duke of Savoy Entreats the Emperor to put him in Possession of it – The Hour Passes – Farel Enters Geneva – Preaches – The Perfect Liberty – The Great Pardon – Beginning of a New Geneva – Terror of the Priests – Farel and Saunier Summoned before the Council – Protected by Letters from Bern – A Tumult – Farel narrowly Escapes Death – Is Sent away from Geneva – Froment Comes in his Room – Begins as Schoolmaster – His New Year's Day Sermon – Popular Agitation – Retires from Geneva |
| Chapter 6 | . . . | GENEVA ON THE BRINK OF CIVIL WAR. First Communion in Geneva – Plot to Massacre all the Converts – Canon Wernli – The Roman Catholics take Arms – The City on the Brink of Civil War – The Battle Averted – Another Storm – Canon Wernli Arms and Rings the Tocsin – He is Slain – Bern Interposes – The Council Permits by Edict the Free Preaching of the Gospel in Geneva – The Pope Commands the Bishop to Return to the City – He Blunders and Retires – Froment Returns – Farel and Viret Arrive in Geneva – Dejection of the Roman Catholics. |
| Chapter 7 | . . . | HEROISM OF GENEVA. Conspiracy against Geneva – Detection – Protestants gain Possession of one of the Churches – The Gospel in Geneva – Glories Near but Unseen – An Army of Pilgrims – A Hunting Party – The Game not Caught – Roman Catholic Exodus – The Duke and the Emperor Combine against Geneva – Perils of the City – Heroic Resolution of the Citizens – The Suburbs Demolished – The Citizens Wait the Assault. |
| Chapter 8 | . . . | ROME FALLS AND GENEVA RISES. New Foothold for Protestantism – Conditions Necessary in it – Friburg and Bern Abandon Geneva – Resolution of the Citizens – The Bishop Removes his Court – Geneva assumes its own Government – Castle of Peney – Atrocities – Attempt to Poison the Protestant Ministers – Conversion of the Franciscan Monks – Public Disputation – Miracles – Discoveries – Bodies of St. Nazaire etc. – Relics – Souls from Purgatory. |
| Chapter 9 | . . . | ESTABLISHMENT OF PROTESTANTISM IN GENEVA. Symbol of St. Francis – Monstrous Figure in the Dominican Convent – Mass Forbidden by the Council – Interview of Syndics with the Canons, etc. – Edict of the Reformation – Wrath of the Duke of Savoy – Blockades Geneva – Friburg Breaks its Treaty with Geneva – Bern also Forsakes it – The City nearly Taken – Successful Sorties of the Besieged – Bern comes to the Help of the Genevans – The Savoyard Army Retreats – The Duke Deprived of his Kingdom by Francis I. – Geneva Completes its Reformation – Farel and the Council – Sermons – Social Regulations – School – Oath of the Citizens – City Motto – Tablet of Brass – Greatness of the Victory. |
| Chapter 10 | . . . | CALVIN ENTERS GENEVA — ITS CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
CONSTITUTION. Calvin at the Gates of Geneva — Farel Told — Meeting of Farel and Calvin — Is this the Author of the Institutes?—Adjuration — Calvin Remains in Geneva — Commences as Lecturer in the Cathedral — His Confession of Faith — Excommunication — What is it? — Morality the Corner-stone of the New State — Civil Constitution of the Republic — The Council-General — The Council of Two Hundred — The Council of Twenty-five — The Syndics — The Consistory or Church-Court — Distinction between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers — Calvin's Ideas on the Relations between Church and State — Guizot's Testimony — Calvin's Ideal in Advance of his Age. |
| Chapter 11 | . . . | SUMPTUARY LAWS — CALVIN AND FAREL BANISHED. Geneva Stands or Falls with its Morality — Code of Morals — Dances, etc. — The Sumptuary Laws Earlier than Calvin's Time — Rise of the Libertine Party — Outcries — Demand for the Abolition of the New Code — The Libertines obtain a Majority in the Council — Bern Interferes adversely — Question of Unleavened BreadsConfusion and Disorders in Geneva — Calvin and Farel Refuse to Dispense the Communion at Easter — Tumult in the Churches — Farel and Calvin Banished by the Council. |
| Chapter 12 | . . . | CALVIN AT STRASBURG — ROME DRAWS NEAR TO GENEVA. Farel at Neuchatel — Calvin at Strasburg — His Labors there — Disorders at Geneva — Calvin's Poverty — Efforts of Rome to Retake Geneva — Cardinal Sadoleto — His Letter to the Genevans — Who shall Reply to it? — Calvin does so — Rising Tide of the Reformation — Ebb of Romanism — Conference between the Protestants and Romanists at Frankfort — Calvin goes thither — No Fruit of the Conference — Calvin and Melancthon's Interviews — Calvin's Confidence in Melancthon — His tender Love for him — Calvin and Luther never Meet — Luther placed amid the Teutonic Peoples, Calvin amid the Latin Nations — Wisdom of this Arrangement. |
| Chapter 13 | . . . | ABORTIVE CONFERENCES AT HAGENAU AND RATISBON. Convention at Hagenau — Attempt to Steal a March on the Protestants — Firmness of the German Princes — Conference at Ratisbon — Perplexities of Charles V. — Cardinal Contarini — Programme — Auspicious Beginning of Conference — Agreement on several Doctrines — The Dead-lock of Transubstantiation — Hopes come to Nothing — Would Conciliation have been a Blessing to Christendom? — It would have given Entombment to Protestantism, and New Life to Atheistic Revolution. |
| Chapter 14 | . . . | CALVIN RETURNS TO GENEVA. The Movement must resume its March — Calvin at Strasburg — The Libertines at Geneva — Calvin's Four Persecutors Perish — Tide Turns at Geneva — Deputations to entreat Calvin's Return — The Idea of going back Terrible to him — Bucer's Adjuration — Starts on his Return Journey — Enters Geneva — Reception — Lessons Learned in Exile — Returns Fitter for his Work — Idelette de Bure — His Salary, etc. |
| Chapter 15 | . . . | THE ECCLESIASTICAL ORDINANCES. Assembly in the Cathedral — Calvin's Address — Resolves to Stem the Tide of Moral Ruin — Proposal to the Council — The Ecclesiastical Ordinances Drafted — Voted by the People — His Ecclesiastical Government — Four Orders of Ministers — Two in Reality — The Venerable Company — Election of Pastors — Consistory — Its Functions — The Council Punishes in the Last Resort — The Ecclesiastical Ordinances the Laws of the State — Freely Accepted by the People — Is this the Inquisition over again? — No — A Theocratic Republic established at Geneva — Bungener's Defence of it. |
| Chapter 16 | . . . | THE NEW GENEVA. The Ministry — The Weekly Exercise — Visiting — Calvin — His Sermons — Studies — Correspondence — From the Centre Watches the Whole Field — Geneva the Dwelling of a Righteous People — Calvin's Aim to make it a Model City — Character of Calvin's Commentaries— Two Genevas — The Libertines — Geneva becomes the Thermopyke of Christendom. |
| Chapter 17 | . . . | CALVIN'S BATTLES WITH THE LIBERTINES. Pierre Ameaux — His Wife — The Spiritual Libertines — A Public Confession — Jacques Gruet — An Execution — Practical Reforms — Amy Perrin — his Ambition — Francois Favre — Madame Perrin Imprisoned — Rage of the Favre Family — The Law Triumphs — The Disorders Renewed — Calvin's Appearance before the Council — His Magnanimity — Peace Restored — Calvin meanwhile Labours indefatigably — Growing Renown of Geneva — The Favres again "Lift up the Horn " — Perrin made First Syndic — Personal Outrages on Calvin — Comparison between Luther and Calvin in their Sufferings — Sublimity of Calvin — His Wife, Idelette de Bure, Dies. |
| Chapter 18 | . . . | CALVIN'S LABORS FOR UNION. Misfortunes of Protestantism in Germany—Death of Paul III.—Election of Julius III.—The Conclave—Jubilee—The Golden Hammer—Francis I. Dies—Henry II.—He Looks Two Ways at Once—Calvin Turns with Hope to England—Edward VI. on the Throne—What Calvin Judged Necessary for England's Reformation—Scotland—Spain—Philip II.—All Things being Shaken—Calvin's Labors for the Union of the Church— The Eucharist the Point of Division—Zwingli's and Calvin's Views— They are Substantially One—The Consensus Tigurinis—Its Teaching Accepted by Switzerland, France, and England—Germany Stands Aloof—Theodore Beza Arrives at Geneva—His Youth and Studies— Becomes Calvin's Associate in Labor—Distinguished Group around Calvin—Outer and Wider Group—The Man at the Center. |
| Chapter 19 | . . . | SERVETUS COMES TO GENEVA AND IS ARRESTED. Toleration—Servetus's Birth—Genius—Studies—Commission to Reform all Religions—Malignant Attacks on Christianity—Publishes his Restitution of Christianity—Sends the Book to Calvin—Its Doctrine Pantheism—Servetus Condemned to Death at Vienne—Escapes—Comes to Geneva—Is Imprisoned—His Indictment drawn by Calvin— Haughtiness of his Defence—Servetus and Calvin face to face— Indecencies and Blasphemies against Christianity—The Question at Geneva, Shall it be a Pantheistic Republic ruled by Servetus, or a Theocracy ruled by Calvin? |
| Chapter 20 | . . . | CALVIN'S VICTORY OVER THE LIBERTINES. Another Arena—Excommunication—Council Grasps the Ecclesiastical Power—Berthelier Excommunicated—Spiritual Sentence Annulled by the Senate—The Libertines make Common Cause with Servetus—New Indictment against Servetus—Calvin Fighting Two Battles at the Same Time—Communion Sunday—Consistory's Remonstrance with the Council—The Council Changes Nothing in its Decree—Sunday, 3rd September, 1553—A Momentous Issue to be Determined—The Comnmnion-table in St. Peter's—The Libertines Approach—Calvin Debars them—The Reformation Saved—Moral Grandeur of the Act— The Two Beacons—Worms a Triumph over Tyrannical Power—St. Peter's a Triumph over Godless Democracy. |
| Chapter 21 | . . . | APPREHENSION AND TRIAL OF SERVETUS. "Here I stand," etc.—Calvin expects to be Banished—Takes Farewell of his Flock—Servetus—Resume—Servetus asks to Dispute with Calvin— The Magistrates Refuse—Nicholas de la Fontaine—Enters himself as Prosecutor for Calvin—Examination of Servetus—Defended by Berthelier—Calvin comes forward—The Council take the Prosecution into their own hands—Indictment of the Attorney-General—Sedition the Main Charge against Servetus—Servetus pleads for Free Inquiry—His Cause Mixed up with the Libertines'—Boldness of Servetus—Calvin's Struggle with the Council—Shall the Reformer Quit Geneva?—His Influence with the Magistrates at Zero. |
| Chapter 22 | . . . | CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF SERVETUS. The Swiss Churches Consulted—Servetus Demands Calvin's Impeachment—Answer of the Swiss Churches—Their Verdict Unanimous—Council Condemns Servetus to be Burned—Calvin Intercedes that the Sword be Substituted for the Stake—Sentence Communicated to Servetus—Farel—Interview between Servetus and Calvin—Servetus Summoned to Execution—his Terror—The Procession—View from Champel—Farel's Last Conversation with Servetus—The Pile Kindled—Servetus Dies—Gibbon—Jurisprudence of the Age—No Romanist can Condemn Calvin. |
| Chapter 23 | . . . | CALVIN'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH MARTYRS, REFORMERS, AND
MONARCHS. Calvin at the Center- Stages of his Life—His Work Advancing— Missionaries—The "Dispersed in the Isles"—The Martyrs—How Calvin Comforted them—The Collar of the Order of Martyrs—The Five Martyrs of Lyons—Their Behavior at the Stake—Calvin Surveying the Field and the Fallen around him—Counsels Princes—Edward VI.— Calvin's Letter to Somerset on the Reformation of England—Letter to Edward VI.—Archbishop Cranmer—Union—Calvin's Longings for it. |
| Chapter 24 | . . . | CALVIN'S MANIFOLD LABORS. Dedication of his Commentaries and Works—Care of the Churches— Poland, etc.—England and Elizabeth—Scotland—John Knox—Similarity between Calvin and Knox—The Secret of their Power—Immense Labors of Calvin—Calvin and Innocent III. Compared and Contrasted. |
| Chapter 25 | . . . | FINAL VICTORY AND GLORY OF GENEVA. The Libertines Renew the Attack—Social Disorders—The Spiritual Supremacy of the Consistory the Key of Calvin's Position—Cannot be Abandoned—Council finally Concedes it—Flank Attack—The Libertines Complain of the Sermons—of the Publications of Calvin—of the Refugees—Fifty Refugees Enrolled as Citizens—Perrin Excites a Tumult—Projected Massacre of the Refugees—Miscarriage of the Attempt—Executions—Perrin Flees—Victory—Glory of Geneva. |
| Chapter 26 | . . . | GENEVA AND ITS INFLUENCE IN EUROPE. Peace of Geneva—Geneva and Calvin become One—Testimony of Knox and others to the Church of Geneva—The Sundays of Geneva—The Libertines and Bern—Bolsec and Castalio—Calvin's Care of the Church of France—Preachers sent to it—Labors in Organising Churches— Calvin Counsels the French Protestants to Eschew Arms—Martyrs, not Soldiers, wanted—Forged Letters— Constitution and Organization of the French Protestant Church—Amazing Growth of Protestantism in France. |
| Chapter 27 | . . . | THE ACADEMY OF GENEVA. Foundation of the Academy—Subscriptions—Its Opening—Its Literary Equipment—Its Subsequent Renown—Its Library—What it Suggests— Calvin's Simplicity of Life—Sadoleto Visits him—The Cardinal's Surprise—Calvin's Poverty—His Charity—He Declines the Aid of the Council. |
| Chapter 28 | THE SOCLAL AND FAMILY LIFE OF GENEVA. The Daily Sermon—Its Attractiveness—Daily Life of the Citizen—His Dress—His Table—Development of Wealth—The Refugees—The Benefits they conferred on their Adopted Country—English Names on the Genevan Registers—The Sabbath in Geneva. |
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| Chapter 29 | CALVIN'S LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH Calvin's Painful Maladies—Redoubles his Labors—Last Appearance in the Pulpit—Europe Watches his Death-bed—The Plague breaks out—Its Frightful Ravages—Calvin's Last Participation in the Lord's Supper— Goes for the Last Time to the Senate—He Receives the Senators— Receives the Pastors—Farel Visits him—Sits down at Table for the Last Time with his Brethren—His Last Week—One continued Prayer—His Death—His Burial—His Grave. |
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| Chapter 30 | CALVIN'S WORK. Impression made by the News of Calvin's Death—Exultation of Rome— Despondency of the Reformed—Both Mis-calculate—The Reformation is Calvin—Geneva grows still Greater—Luther and Calvin Compared— The Two Reformations One—The Culmination of the German Reformation, the Starting-point of the Genevan—Calvin's Special Service to the Reformation—Theories of Church Government—Luther's Views—Melancthon's—Brentius'—Lambert's—Zwingli's—Calvin Builds on the Foundations of his Predecessors—The Key of his Position—The Two Lessons. |
BOOK FOURTEENTH
RISE AND ESTABLISHMENT OF PROTESTANTISM AT GENEVA.
CHAPTER 1 Back to Top
GENEVA: THE CITY AND ITS HISTORY.
Protestantism finds a New Centre — The Lake Leman — Geneva — Its Site
— Its Diminutive Size — Sncers — History of Geneva — Four Names,
Julius Caesar, Honorius, Charlemagne, the Reformation, indicate the Four Stages of its
History — The Bishop its First Ruler — Intrigues of the Dukes of Savoy —
Pope Martin V. takes from the Genevese the right of Electing their Bishop — Exercises
it himself — Appoints a Prince of Savoy to be Bishop of Geneva — Its
Independence on the point of being Extinguished — New Life — War between the
Prince-Bishop and the Citizens — Bonivard — His Picture of the Popes —
Berthelier — His Devotion to his Country — Levrier — His Love of Justice
— The War Then and Now — Wonderful Preservation of Geneva's Independence —
A Higher Liberty Approaching.
PROTESTANTISM has now received its completed logical and
doctrinal development, and a new and more central position must be found for it. Before
returning to the open stage of the great Empires of France and Germany, and resuming our
narrative of the renovating powers which the Reformation had called forth, with the great
social and political revolutions which came in its train, we must devote our attention to
a city that is about to become the second metropolis of Protestantism.
In leaving the wide arena of empire where Protestantism is jostled by dukes, prelates, and
emperors, and moves amid a blaze of State pageantries, and in shutting ourselves up in a
little town whose name history, as yet, had hardly deigned to mention, and whose
diminutive size is all but annihilated by the mighty mountainous masses amid which it is
placed, we make a great transition. But if the stage is narrow, and if Protestantism is
stripped of all that drapery and pomp which make it so imposing on the wider arena, we
shall here have a closer view of the principle itself, and be the better able to mark its
sublimity and power, in the mighty impulses which from this center it is to send abroad,
in order to plant piety and nourish liberty in other countries.
In the valley which the Jura on the one side, and the white Alps on the other, enclose
within their gigantic arms, lies the mirror-like Leman. At the point where the Rhone
gushes from the lake a bulging rock bristles up, and, framing in the form of a crescent a
little space along the shore of the Leman, forms a pedestal for the city of Geneva. The
little town looks down upon the placid waters of the lake spread out at its feet, and
beholds its own image mirrored clearly, but not grandly, for architectural magnificence is
not one of the characteristic features of the city, especially in the times of which we
write. A few miles away, on the other side, another rock shoots up, dark, precipitous, and
attaining the dignity of a mountain — lofty it would seem in any other country, but
here it has to compete with the gigantic piles of the Alps — and, bending crest-like,
leans over Geneva, which it appears to guard. A few acres suffice to give standing-room to
the city. Its population in the days of Calvin numbered only some 12,000, and even now
does not much exceed 40,000. Its cantonal territory is the smallest in all Switzerland,
that of Zug excepted. Its diminutive size provoked the sneer of the philosopher of Ferney,
who could survey it all standing at his door. "When I dress my peruke," said
Voltaire, "I powder the whole republic." The Emperor Paul sarcastically called
the struggles of its citizens "a tempest in a teapot." In days prior to the
utterance of these sarcasms and taunts — that is, in the latter part of the sixteenth
century — this little town excited other emotions than those of contempt, and was the
butt of other assaults than those of sarcasm. It brought pallor into the face of monarchs.
It plucked the scepter from the grasp of mighty empires, and showed the world that it knew
how to extend and perpetuate its sway by making itself the metropolis of that moral and
spiritual movement which, whatever might be the fate of the city itself, even should its
site become the bare rock it once was, would continue to spread abroad to all countries,
and travel down to all the ages of the future.
Turning from its site to its history, Geneva dates from before the Christian era, and is
scarcely, if at all, less ancient than that other city, that takes the proud name of
"Eternal," and with which it has been Geneva's lot, in these last ages, to do
battle. Buried amid the dense shadows of paganism, and afterwards amid the not less dense
shadows of Popery, Geneva remained for ages unknown, and gave no augury to the world of
the important part it was destined to play, at a most eventful epoch, in the history of
nations.
It comes first into view in connection with the great Julius, who stumbled upon it as he
was pursuing his career of northern conquest, and wrote its name in his Commentaries,
where it figures as "the last fortress of the Allobroges."[1] But the conqueror passed, and
with him passed the light which had touched for a moment this sub-Alpine stronghold. It
fell back again into the darkness. Under Honorius, in the fourth century, it became a
city. It rose into some eminence, and even was possessed of a little liberty, in the days
of Charlemagne. But a better day-spring awaited Geneva. The rising sun of the Reformation
struck full upon it, and this small town became one of the lights of the world.
But we must glance back, and see what a long preparation the little city had to undergo
for its great destiny. The dissolution of the Empire of Charlemagne set Geneva free to
consider after what fashion it should govern itself. At this crisis its bishop stepped
forward and claimed, in addition to its spiritual oversight, the right to exercise its
temporal government. The citizens conceded the claim only within certain limits. Still
preserving their liberties, they took the bishop into partnership with them in the civic
jurisdiction. The election of the bishop was in the hands of the people, and, before
permitting him to mount the episcopal chair, they made him take an oath to preserve their
franchises.[2] In
the middle of the thirteenth century the independence of Geneva began to be menaced by the
Counts of Savoy. That ambitious house, which was labouring to exalt itself by absorbing
its neighbors' territory into its own, had cast covetous eyes upon Geneva. It would round
off their dominions; besides, they were sharp-sighted enough to see that there were
certain principles at work in this little Alpine town which made them uneasy. But neither
intrigues nor arms — and the Princes of Savoy employed both — could prevail to
this end. The citizens of Geneva knew how it fared with them under the staff of their
bishop, but they did not know how it might go with them under the sword of the warrior,
and so they stubbornly declined the protection of their powerful neighbor.
In the fifteenth century, the Counts of Savoy, now become dukes, still persevering in
their attempts to bring the brave little city under their yoke, besought the aid of a
power which history attests has done more than all the dukes and warriors of Christendom
to extinguish liberty. Duke Amadeus VIII., who had added Piedmont to his hereditary
dominions, as if to exemplify the adage that "ambition grows by what it feeds
on," petitioned Pope Martin V. to vest in him the secular lordship of Geneva.
The citizens scented what was in the wind, and knowing that "Rome ought not to lay
its paw upon kingdoms," resolved to brave the Pope himself if need were. Laying their
hands upon the Gospels, they exclaimed, "No alienation of the city or of its
territory — this we swear." Amadeus withdrew before the firm attitude of the
Genevese.
Not so the Pope; he continued to prosecute the intrigue, deeming the little town but a
nest of eaglets among crags, which it were wise betimes to pull down. But, more crafty
than the duke, he tried another tack. Depriving the citizens of the right of electing
their bishop, Martin V. took the nomination into his own hands, and thus opened the way
for quietly transferring the municipal rule of Geneva to the House of Savoy. All he had
now to do was to appoint a Prince of Savoy as its bishop. By-and-by this was done; and the
struggle with the Savoy power was no longer outside the walls only, it was mainly within.
The era that now opened to Geneva was a stormy and bloody one. Intrigues and rumors of
intrigues kept the citizens in perpetual disquiet. The city saw itself stripped of its
privileges and immunities one by one. Its annual fair was transferred to Lyons, and the
crowd of merchants and traders which had flocked to it from beyond the Alps, from the
towns of France, and from across the Rhine, ceased to be seen. Tales of priestly scandals
— for the union of the two offices in their prince-bishop only helped to develop the
worst qualities of both — passed from mouth to mouth and polluted the very air. If
Geneva was growing weaker, Savoy was growing stronger. The absorption of one petty
principality after another was daily enlarging the dominions of the duke, which, sweeping
past and around Geneva, enclosed it as in a net, with a hostile land bristling with
castles and swarming with foes. It was said that there were more Savoyards than Genevese
who heard the bells of St. Pierre. Such was the position in which the opening of the
sixteenth century found Geneva. This small but ancient municipality was seemingly on the
point of being absorbed in the dominions of the House of Savoy. Its history appeared to be
closed. The vulture of the Alps, which had hovered above it for centuries, had but to
swoop down upon it and transfix it with his talons.
At that moment a new life suddenly sprang up in the devoted city. To preserve the remnant
of their franchises was not enough; the citizens resolved to recover what liberties had
been lost. In order to this many battles had to be fought, and much blood spilt. Leo X.,
about the same time that he dispatched Tetzel to Germany to sell indulgences, sent a scion
of the House of Savoy to Geneva (1513) as bishop. By the first the Pope drew forth Luther
from his convent, by the second he paved the way for Calvin. The newly-appointed bishop,
known in history as the" Bastard of Savoy," brought to the episcopal throne of
Geneva a body foul with disease, the fruit of his debaucheries, and a soul yet more foul
with deceitful and bloody passions; but a fit tool for the purpose in hand. The matter had
been nicely arranged between the Pope, the duke, and the Bastard.[3] "John of Savoy swore to hand over the temporal jurisdiction
of the city to the duke, and the Pope swore he would force the city to submit to the duke,
under pain of incurring the thunders of the Vatican."[4]
From that time there was ceaseless and bitter war between the citizens of Geneva on
one side, and the duke and the bishop on the other. It is not our business to record the
various fortune of that strife. Now it was the bishop who was besieged in his palace, and
now it was the citizens who were butchered upon their own streets by the bishop's
soldiers. To-day it was the Bastard who was compelled to seek safety in flight, and
to-morow it was some leader of the patriots who was apprehended, tortured, beheaded, and
his ghastly remains hung up to the public gaze as a warning to others. But if blood was
shed, it was blood that leads to victory. The patriots, who numbered only nine at first,
multiplied from year to year, though from year to year the struggle grew only the
bloodier. The Gospel had not yet entered the gates of Geneva. The struggle so far was for
liberty only, a name then denoting that which was man's noblest birthright after the
Gospel, and which found as its champions men of pure and lofty soul. Wittemberg and Geneva
had not yet become fused; the two liberties had not yet united their arms.
Among the names that illustrate this struggle, so important from what was to come after,
are the well-known ones of Bonivard, Berthelier, and Levrier — a distinguished trio,
to whom modern liberty owes much, though the stage on which they figured was a narrow one.
Bonivard was a son of the Renaissance. A scholar and a man of wit, he drew his inspiration
for liberty from a classic font. From his Priory of St. Victor this accomplished and
liberal-minded man assailed Rome with the shafts of satire. If his erudition was less
profound and his taste less exquisite than that of Erasmus, his courage was greater. The
scholar of Rotterdam flagellated the man in serge, but spared the man in purple: the Prior
of St. Victor dealt equal justice to monk and Pope. He lashed the ignorance and low vices
of the former, but castigated yet more severely the pride, luxury, and ambition of the
latter. He mistrusted the plan Rome had hit on of regenerating men in tribes and clans,
and preferred to have it done individualy. He thought too that it would be well if his
"Holiness" possessed a little holiness, though that was a marvel he did not
expect soon to see. "I have lived," he said, "to see three Popes. First,
Alexander VI. [Borgia] a sharp fellow, a ne'er-do-weel... a man without conscience, and
without God. Next came Julius II., proud, choleric, studying his bottle more than his
breviary, mad about his Popedom, and having no thought but how he could, subdue not only
the earth, but heaven and hell. Last appeared Leo X., the present Pope, learned in Greek
and Latin, but especially a good musician, a great glutton, a deep drinker; possessing
beautiful pages, whom the Italians style ragazzi ...... above all, don't trust Leo X.'s
word; he can dispense others, and surely can dispense himself."[5]
He brusquely allegorised the German Reformation thus: "Leo X. and his
predecessors," said the prior, "have always taken the Germans for beasts; pecora
campi, they were called, and rightly too, for these simple Saxons allowed themselves to be
saddled and ridden like asses. The Popes threatened them with cudgelling
(excommunications), enticed them with thistles (indulgences), and so made them trot to the
mill to bring away the meal for them. But having one day loaded the ass too heavily, Leo
made him gib, so that the flour was spilt, and the white bread lost. That ass is called
Martin like all asses, and his surname is Luther, which signifies enlightener."[6]
The lettered and gentlemanly Prior of St. Victor had not a little of the cold,
sneering, sceptical spirit that belonged to the Renaissance. He "put on his
gloves" when he came in contact with the citizens of Geneva; they were somewhat too
bluff and outspoken for him; nevertheless he continued steadfastly on their side, and,
with not a few temptations to act a contrary part, proved himself a true friend of
liberty. He was seized with the idea that were he Bishop and Prince of Geneva, he would
have it in his power to liberate his native city. He even set off to Rome in the hope of
realising a project which every one who knew who Bonivard was, and what Rome was, must
have deemed chimerical. It was found at Rome that he had not the grace for a bishop, and
he returned without the mitre. It was a wonder to many that he was permitted to return at
all, and the prior must have been thankful for his escape.
Berthelier was cast in another mold. He was the tribune of the people; he talked, laughed,
and caroused with them; he sought especially to surround himself with the youth of Geneva;
for this end he studied their tastes, and entered into all their amusements, but all the
while he was on the watch for fitting occasions of firing them with his own spirit of
hatred of tyranny, and devotion to the public welfare. He was sagacious, ready,
indomitable, and careless of life. He knew what the struggle was coming to as regarded
himself, but he did not bemoan the hard fate awaiting him, knowing that there was a
mysterious and potent power in blood to advance the cause for which it was shed.
The third of a group, individually so unlike, yet at one in the cause of their country's
ancient freedom, was Levrier. He was calm, severe, logical; his ideal was justice. He was
a judge, and whatever was not according to law ought to be resisted and overthrown. The
bishop's regime was one continuous perversion of right; it must be brought to an end: so
pleaded Levrier. From time immemorial the men of Geneva had been free: what right had the
Duke of Savoy and his creature, the bishop, to make slaves of them? Neither the duke nor
the bishop was sovereign of Geneva; its true ruler was its charter of ancient franchises:
so said the man of law. The duke feared the great citizen. Levrier was quiet, but firm; he
indulged in no clamor, but he cherished no fear; he bowed before the majesty of law, and
stood erect before the tyrant:
Such were the men who were now fighting the battle of liberty
at the foot of the Alps in the dawn of modern times. That battle has varied its form in
the course of the centuries. In after-days the contest in Continental Europe has been to
separate the spiritual from the temporal, relegate each to its own proper domain, and
establish between the two such a poise as shall form a safeguard to freedom; and
especially to pluck the sword of the State from the hands of the ecclesiastical power. But
at Geneva, in the times we write of, the conflict had for its immediate object to prevent
a separation between the two powers. Nevertheless, the battle is the same in both cases,
the same in Geneva 300 years ago as in Europe in 1875. The Genevans had no love for the
man who occupied their episcopal throne; it was no aim of theirs, in the last resort, to
preserve a class of amphibious rulers, neither prince nor bishop, but the two mixed and
confounded, to the immense detriment of both. The Prince-Bishop of Geneva was, on a small
scale, what the Prince-Bishop of Rome was on a great. But the Genevans preferred having
one tyrant to having two. This was the alternative before them. They knew that should
they, at this hour, strip the bishop of the temporal government, the duke would seize upon
it, and they preferred meanwhile keeping the mitre and the scepter united, in the hope
that they would thus not only shut out the duke, but eventually expel the prince-bishop.
Marvellous it truly was that so little a city should escape so many snares, and defy so
many armed assaults; for the duke again and again advanced with his army to take it —
nay, upon one occasion, was admitted within its walls. There were foes enough around it,
one would have thought, to have swept it from off its rock, trod buried it beneath the
waves of its lake. And so would it have happened to Geneva but for the bravery of its
sons, who were resolved that sooner than see it enslaved they would see it razed to the
ground.
Had it been a great empire, its posts, dignities, and titles might have stimulated and
sustained their patriotism; but what recompense in point of fame or riches could a little
obscure town like Geneva offer for the blood which its citizen-heroes were ready every
moment to pour out in defense of its freedom? A higher power than man had kindled this
fire in the hearts of its citizens. The combatants were fighting, although they knew it
not, for a higher liberty than Geneva had yet tasted. And that liberty was on the road to
it. The snowy peaks around it were even now beginning to kindle with a new day. Voices
were heard crying to the beleaguered and perplexed town, "How beautiful upon the
mountains are the feet of them that bring good tidings; that publish peace!" It was
the purpose of him who putteth down the mighty from their seats, and exalteth the lowly,
to lift this city to equality with the ancient capitals of Christendom — nay, to
place it above them all. For this end would he make empty the episcopal throne in St.
Pierre, that the Gospel might enter and seat itself upon it. Then would Geneva raise its
head in the presence of the ancient and historic cities of Europe — Rome, Paris,
Milan, Venice — with a halo round it brighter than had ever encircled their brow. It
would stand forth a temple of liberty, in the midst of Christendom, its gates open day and
night, to welcome within its walls, as within an impregnable fortress, the persecuted of
all lands.
CHAPTER 2 Back to Top
GENEVESE MARTYRS OF LIBERTY.
Berthelier — Apprehended — Beheaded — His Remains publicly Exposed —
Bonivard — Banished — Castle of Chillon — Bishop of Geneva Dies — His
Remorse — Levrier — His Arrest by the Duke — Carried to the Castle of Bonne
— His Execution — What Victories of Brute Force Lead to — Momentary Triumph
of the Duke — He Flees from Geneva never to Return — Lessons learned by Genevese
Exiles — They Return to Act them out — Geneva's Gates Open towards the Rising
Sun.
BEFORE the day of Geneva's greatness should have arrived,
many of its heroic defenders would be resting in the grave, the road thither for nearly
all of them being by the scaffold. Let us recount the fate of the more prominent; and,
first of all, of Berthelier. One morning, as he was going to breathe the fresh air outside
the walls in his favouite meadow, bathed by the waters of the Rhone, he was arrested by
the duke's soldiers.[1] He
bore himself with calmness and dignity both at his arrest and during the few days now left
him of life. He wrote on the walls of his prison a verse of Scripture, which permits us to
hope that he had cast anchor in another world than that which he was so soon to leave. His
head fell by the hand of the executioner at the foot of Caesar's Tower, in the isle in the
Leman, near the point where the Rhone issues from the lake.[2] His fellow-citizens beheld him die, but could not save him. The
cruel deed but deepened their purpose of vengeance. The head of the patriot was fastened
up on the bridge of the Arve. Blackening in the sun it was a ghastly memorial of Savoyard
tyranny, and a thrilling appeal to the compatriots of Berthelier never to submit to the
despot who had no other rewards than this for the noblest of Geneva's sons.
The fate of Bonivard was less tragic, but has become better known to us, from the notice
bestowed upon him by a great poet. He was deprived of his priory; and while a scaffold was
set up for Berthelier at one extremity of the Leman, a dungeon was found for Bonivard at
the other. The modern tourist, as he passes along the lovely shores of the lake, beneath
the magnificent amphitheatre of mountains that overhang Vevay, has his attention arrested
by the massive and still entire walls of a castle, surrounded on all sides by the deep
waters of the Leman, save where a draw-bridge joins it to the shore. This is the Castle of
Chillon, the scene of Bonivard's imprisonment, and where the track worn by his feet in the
rocky floor may still be traced, while the ripple of the water, which rises to the level
of the loop-hole in the wall, may be heard when the wind stirs upon the lake.
At this stage of the drama, the wretched man who had filled the office of bishop, and had
been the duke's co-conspirator in these attempts upon the liberty of Geneva, died (1522)
miserably at Pignerol, on the southern side of the Alps, on the very frontier of the
territory of the Waldenses. His dying scene was awful and horrible. Around his bed stood
only hirelings. Careless of the agonies he was enduring, their eyes roamed round the room
in quest of valuables, which they might carry off whenever his breath should depart. The
effigies of his victims seemed traced upon the wall of his chamber. They presented to him
a crucifix: he thought it was Berthelier, and shrieked out. They brought him the last
Sacrament: he fancied they were sprinkling him with blood; his lips, whitened with foam,
let fall execrations and blasphemies. Such is the picture which a Romanist writer draws of
his last hours. But before the dark scene closed something like a ray of light broke in.
He conjured his coadjutor and successor, Pierre de la Baume, not to walk in his footsteps,
but to defend the franchises of Geneva. He saw in the sufferings he was enduring the
punishment of his misdeeds; he implored forgiveness, and hoped God would pardon him in
purgatory.[3]
But Charles III, Duke of Savoy and Piedmont, still lived, and unwarned by the
miserable end of his accomplice, he continued to prosecute his guilty project.[4] Another martyr of liberty was
now to offer up his life. The man who most embarrassed the duke still lived: he must be
swept from his path. Charles did not believe in patriotism, and thought to buy Levrier.[5]
The judge spurned the bribe. Well, the axe will do what gold cannot. He was
arrested (Easter, 1524) at the gates of St. Pierre, as he was leaving after hearing
morning mass. "He wore a long camlet robe, probably his judicial gown, and a
beautiful velvet cassock."[6] Mounted
hastily upon a wretched nag, his hands tied behind his back, and his feet fastened below
the belly of his horse, the judge was carried, in the midst of armed men, who jeered at
and called him traitor, to the Castle of Bonne, where the duke was then residing.
The Castle of Bonne, now a ruin, is some two leagues from Geneva. It stands in the midst
of scenery such as Switzerland only can show. The panorama presents to the eye an
assemblage of valleys, with their carpet-like covering, foaming torrents, the black mouths
of gorges, pines massed upon the hill-tops, and beyond, afar off, the magnificence of
snowy peaks.
The tragedy enacted in this spot we shall leave D'Aubigne to tell, who has here, with his
usual graphic power, set in the light of day a deed that was done literally in the
darkness. "Shortly," says the historian, "after Bellegrade's" (the man
who pronounced doom) "departure, the confessor entered, discharged his duty
mechanically, uttered the sentence 'Ego to absolvo,' and withdrew, showing no more
sympathy for his victim than the provost had done. Then appeared a man with a cord: it was
the executioner. It was then ten o'clock at night. The inhabitants of the little town and
of the adjacent country were sleeping soundly, and no one dreamt of the cruel deed that
was about to cut short the life of a man who might have shone in the first rank in a great
monarchy. .... The headsman bound the noble Levrier, armed men surrounded him, and the
martyr of law was conducted slowly to the castle-yard. All nature was dumb, nothing broke
the silence of that funeral procession; Charles's agents moved like shadows beneath the
ancient walls of the castle. The moon, which had not reached its first quarter, was near
setting, and shed only a feeble gleam. It was too dark to distinguish the beautiful
mountains, in the midst of which stood the towers whence they had dragged their victim;
the trees and houses of Bonne were scarcely visible; one or two torches, carried by the
provost's men, alone threw light upon this cruel scene. On reaching the middle of the
castle-yard the headsman stopped, and the victim also. The ducal satellites silently
formed a circle round them, and the executioner prepared to discharge his office. Levrier
was calm, the peace of a good conscience supported him in this dread hour.
Alone in the night, in those sublime regions of the Alps, surrounded by the barbarous
figures of the Savoyard mercenaries, standing in that feudal courtyard which the torches
ilumined with a sinister glare, the heroic champion of the law raised his eyes to heaven,
and said, 'By God's grace, I die without anxiety for the liberty of my country and the
authority of St. Peter!' The grace of God, liberty, authority, these main principles of
the greatness of nations, were his last confession. The words had hardly been uttered when
the executioner swung round his sword, and the head of the citizen rolled in the
castle-yard. Immediately, as if struck with fear, the murderers respectfully gathered up
his remains and placed them in a coffin. 'And his body was laid in earth in the parish
church of Bonne, with the head separate.' At that moment the moon set, and black darkness
hid the stains of blood which Levrier had left on the court-yard."[7]
Charles of Savoy did not reflect that the victories of brute force, such as those
he was now winning, but pave the way for moral triumphs. With every head that fell by his
executioners, he deemed himself a stage nearer to the success he panted to attain. Some
illustrious heads had already fallen; so many more, say twenty, or it might be thirty, and
he would be Lord of Geneva; the small but much-coveted principality would be part of
Savoy, and the object so intently pursued by himself and his ancestors for long years
would be realised. The duke was but practising a deception upon himself. Every head he cut
off dug more deeply the gulf which divided him from the sovereignty of Geneva; every drop
of blood he spilt but strengthened the resolution in the hearts of the patriots that never
should the duke call them his subjects.
Nevertheless, what with stratagem this hour and violence the
next — treachery within Geneva and soldiers and cannon outside of it — it did
seem as if the duke were making way, and the proud little city must, by-and- by, lay its
independence at his feet. In fact, for a moment, Geneva did succumb. On the 15th of
September, 1525, the duke surprised the city with a numerous host. The patriots had
nothing left them but massacre or speedy flight. Fleeing through woods or mountainous
defiles, pursued by Savoyard archers, some escaped to Bern, others to Friberg. The duke,
having entered the city, summoned a council of such citizens as were still to be found in
it, and with the axes of his halberdiers suspended over their heads, these spiritless and
lukewarm men promised to accept him as their prince.[9] But the vow of allegiance given in the "Council of
Halberds" to-day was revoked on the morrow. The duke was at first stunned, and next
he was terrified, at this sudden revival of opposition, when he believed it had been
trampled out. Influenced by this mysterious fear, he hastily left Geneva, never again to
enter it, and let fall, after having seemingly secured it, what he and his ancestors had
been struggling for generations to grasp.[10]
The duke had but scattered the fire, not extinguished it. The parts of Switzerland
to which the patriots had fled were precisely those where the light of the Reformation was
breaking. At Bern and Friburg the exiles of Geneva had an opportunity of studying higher
models of freedom than any they had aforetime come in contact with. They had been sent to
school, and their hearts softened by adversity, were peculiarly open to the higher
teaching now addressed to them. How often in after-years was the same thing repeated which
we see realised in the case of these early champions of freedom! Were not the patriotic
citizens of Spain and Italy again and again chased to the British shores? And for what
end? That there they might study purer models, be instructed in deeper and sounder
principles, have their views of liberty rectified and enlarged, and on their return to
their own country might temper their zeal with patience, fortify their courage with
wisdom, and so speed the better in their efforts for the emancipation of their
fellow-subjects. Fruitful, indeed, were the months which the Genevese exiles spent abroad.
When they reunited in February, 1526, after the flight of the duke, a new era returned
with them. Their sufferings had elicited the sympathy, and their characters had won the
admiration, of the noblest among the citizens of the States where they had been
sojourning. They recognised the important bearing upon Swiss liberty of the struggle which
Geneva had maintained. It was the extreme citadel of the Swiss territory towards the
south; it barred the invader's road from the Alps, and it was impossible to withhold from
the little town the need of praise for the chivalry and devotion with which,
single-handed, it had taken its stand at this Swiss Thermopylae, and held it at all
hazards.
But it was not right, they felt, to leave this city longer in its isolation. For their own
sakes, as well as for Geneva's, they must extend the hand of friendship to it. An alliance
[11] offensive and defensive was
formed between the three governments of Bern, Friburg, and Geneva. If the conflicts of the
latter city were not yet ended, it no longer stood alone. By its side were now two
powerful allies. Whoso touched its independence, touched theirs. If the Gospel had not yet
entered Geneva, its gates stood open towards that quarter of the sky which the rising sun
of the Reformation was flooding with his beams.
CHAPTER 3 Back to Top
THE REFORM COMMENCED IN LAUSANNE AND ESTABLISHED IN MORAT AND NEUCHATEL.
Geneva on the Road to Liberty – Her Advance – There needs the Sword of the
Spirit to Conquer her Highest Liberty – Farel – No Second Field of Kappel –
Farel goes to Aigle – Acts as Schoolmaster – Begins to Preach – Commotion
– Retires from Aigle – Leaves behind him a little Reformed Church – Goes to
Morat–Then an Important Town – Eventually won to the Gospel – Attempts
Lausanne – Goes to Neuchatel – Crowds flock to his Preaching – Plants the
Reformed Faith at Meiry in the neighbouring Jura – Returns to Neuchatel –
Carries its Reformation by a Coup.
GENEVA had gone a long way towards independence. It had
chased the duke across the mountains to return no more. It had formed an alliance with
Bern and Friburg without waiting for the consent of its prince-bishop; this was in effect
to hold his temporal authority null, and to take the sovereignty into its own hands.
Liberty had advanced a stage on its road. Free Europe had enlarged its area; and that of
bond Europe had, to the same extent, been circumscribed: Rome saw the outposts of Progress
so much nearer her own gates. The Pope beheld bold and spirited citizens ignoring the
scepter of their prince-bishop, converting it into a bauble; and the thought must have
suggested itself to him, might not the day come when his own more powerful rod would be
plucked from his hand, and broken in pieces, like that of his vassal-bishop in Geneva?
But though on the road, Geneva had not yet arrived at the goal. She was not yet crowned
with the perfect liberty. A powerful oppressor had her in his grip, namely, Rome. The
tyrant, it is true, had been compelled to relax his hold, but he might tighten his grasp
unless Geneva should succeed in entirely disengaging herself. But she had not yet got hold
of the right weapon for such a battle. Berthelier assailed Rome on the ground of ancient
charters; Bonivard hurled against her the shafts of a revived learning; Levrier maintained
the fight with the sword of justice; but it needed that a more powerful sword, even that
of the Word of the living God, should be unsheathed, before the tyrant could be wholly
discomfited and the victory completely won. That sword had been unsheathed, and the
champions who were wielding it, advancing in their victorious path, were every day coming
nearer the gates of Geneva. When this new liberty should be enthroned within her, then
would her light break forth as the morning, the black clouds which had so long hung about
her would be scattered, and the tyrants who had plotted her overthrow would tremble at her
name, and stand afar off for fear of that invisible Arm that guarded her. Let us turn to
the movements outside the city, which, without concert on the part of their originators,
fall in with the efforts of the champions of liberty within it for the complete
emancipation of Geneva.
We have already met Farel. We have seen him, a mere lad, descending from the mountains of
Dauphine, entering himself a pupil in that renowned seminary of knowledge and orthodoxy,
the Sorbonne – contracting a close friendship with its most illustrious doctor,
Lefevre, accompanying him in his daily visits to the shrines of the metropolis, and
kneeling by the side of the venerable man before the images of the saints. But soon the
eyes both of teacher and pupil were opened; and Farel, transferring that ardor of soul
which had characterised him as a Papist to the side of the Reformation, strove to rescue
others from the frightful abyss of superstition in which he himself had been so near
perishing. Chased from France, as we have already related, he turned his steps toward
Switzerland.
It is the second Reformation in Switzerland that we are now briefly to sketch. The
commencement and progress of the first we have already traced. Beginning with the
preaching of Zwingle in the convent of Einsiedein, the movement in a little time
transferred itself to Zurich; and thence it rapidly spread to the neighboring towns and
cantons in Eastern Helvetia, extending from Basle on the frontier of Germany on the north,
to Choire on the borders of Italy on the south. The Forest Cantons, however, continued
obedient to Rome. The adherents of the old faith and the champions of the new met on the
bloody field of Kappel. The sword gave the victory to Romanism. The bravest and best of
the citizens of Zurich lay stretched upon the battle-field. Among the slain was Zwingle.
With him, so men said and believed at the moment, had fallen the Reformation.
In the grave of its most eloquent preacher and its most courageous defender lay inferred
the hopes of Swiss Protestantism. But though the calamity of Kappel arrested, it did not
extinguish, the movement; on the contrary, it tended eventually to consolidate and quicken
it by impressing upon its friends the necessity of union. In after years, when Geneva came
to occupy the place in the second Helvetian movement which Zurich had done in the first,
the division among the Reformed cantons which had led to the terrible disaster of 1531 was
avoided, and there was no second field of Kappel.
Arriving in Switzerland (1526), Farel took up his abode at Aigle, and there commenced that
campaign which had for its object to conquer to Christ a brave and hardy people dwelling
amid the glaciers of the eternal mountains, or in fertile and sunny valleys, or on the
shores of smiling lakes. The darkness of ages overhung the region, but Farel had brought
hither the light. "Taking the name of Ursin," says Ruchat, "and acting the
part of schoolmaster,[1] he
mingled, with the elements of secular instruction, the seeds of Divine knowledge. Through
the minds of the children he gained access to those of the parents; and when he had
gathered a little flock: around him, he threw off his disguise, and announced himself as
'William Farel,' the minister." Though he had dropped from the clouds the priests
could not have been more affrighted, nor the people more surprised, than they were at the
sudden metamorphosis of the schoolmaster. Farel instantly mounted the pulpit. His bold
look, his burning eye, his voice of thunder, his words, rapid, eloquent, and stamped with
the majesty of truth, reached the conscience, and increased the number of those in the
valley of Aigle who were already prepared to take the Word of God for their guide. But not
by one sermon can the prejudices of ages be dispelled. The cures were filled with wrath at
the bold intruder, who had entered their quiet valley, had shaken their authority, till
now so secure, and had disturbed beliefs as ancient, and as firmly founded, the
mountaineers believed, as the peaks that overhung their valleys.
The priests and people raised a great clamor, being supported by the cantonal officials,
in particular by Jacob de Roverea, Lord of Cret, and Syndic of Aigle. Hearing of the
opposition, the Lords of Bern, whose jurisdiction comprehended Aigle and its neighborhood,
sent a commission to Farel empowering him to explain the Scriptures to the people.[2] The mandate was posted up on the
church doors,[3] but
instead of calming the tempest this intervention of authority only stirred it into
fourfold fury. It would seem as if the Gospel would conquer alone, or not at all. The
priests burned with zeal for the safety of those flocks to whom before they had hardly
ever addressed a word of instruction;[4] the Syndic took their side, and the placards of the magistrates of
Bern were torn down.
"That cannot be the Gospel of Christ," said the priests, "seeing the
preaching of it does not bring peace, but war." This enlightened logic, of a piece
with that which should accuse the singing of the nightingale in a Swiss valley as the
cause of the descent of the avalanches, convinced the mountaineers. The inhabitants of the
four districts into which the territory of Aigle was divided – namely, Aigle, Bex,
Ollon, and the Ormonds – as one man unsheathed the sword.[5] The shepherds who fed their flocks beneath the glaciers of the
Diablerets, hearing that the Church was in danger, rushed like an avalanche to the rescue.
The herdsmen of the Savoy mountains, crossing the Rhone, also hastened to do battle in the
good old cause. Tumults broke out at Box, at Ollon, and other places. Farel saw the
tempest gathering, but remained undismayed. Those who had received the Gospel from him
were prepared to defend him; but were it not better to prevent the effusion of blood, to
which the matter was fast tending, and go and preach the Gospel in other parts of this
lovely but benighted land?
This was the course he adopted; but, in retiring, he had the satisfaction of thinking that
he had planted the standard of the cross at the foot of the mighty Dent de Morcles, and
that he left behind him men whose eyes had been opened, and who would never again bow the
knee to the idols their fathers had served,[6] Soon thereafter, Aigle and Bex, by majorities, gave their voices
for the Reform; but the parishes that lay higher up amid the mountains declared that they
would abide in the old faith.
Whither should Farel go next? Looking from the point where the Rhone, rolling under the
sublime peaks of the Dent du Midi and the Dent de Morelos, pours its discoloured floods
into the crystal Leman, one espies, on the other side of the lake, the vine-clad hill on
which Lausanne is seated. In Popish times this was a city of importance. Its tall
cathedral towers soared aloft on their commanding site, while the lovely region held fast
in the yoke of the Pope slumbered at their feet. Lausanne had a bishop, a college of rich
canons, and a numerous staff of priests. It had besides an annual fair, to which troops of
pilgrims resorted, to pray before the image of "Our Lady," and to buy
indulgences and other trinkets: a traffic that enriched at once the Church and the
towns-people. But though one could hardly stir a step in its streets without:meeting a
"holy man" or a pious pilgrim, the place was a very sink of corruption.[7] There was need, verily, of a
purifying stream being turned in upon this filthy place. Farel essayed to do so, but his
first attempt was not successful, and he turned away upon another tack.[8]
Repulsed from Lausanne, Farel traversed the fertile country which divides the Leman
from the Lake of Neuchatel, and arrived at Morat. This, in our day, insignificant place,
was then a renowned and fortified town. It had sustained three famous sieges, the first in
1032 against the Emperor Conrad, the second in 1292 against the Emperor Rodolph of
Hapsburg, and the third in 1476 against Charles, last Duke of Burgundy. Situated between
France and Germany, the two languages were spoken equally in it. Farel brought with him an
authorisation from the Lords of Bern empowering him to preach, not only throughout the
extent of their own territories, but also in that of their allies, provided they gave
consent.[9]
Here his preaching was not without fruit; but the majority of the citizens electing
to abide still by Rome, he retraced his steps, and presented himself a second time before
that episcopal city that overlooks the blue Leman, and which had so recently driven him
from its gates. He was ambitious of subduing this stronghold of darkness to the Savior.
This time he brought with him a letter from the Lords of Bern, who had jurisdiction in
those parts, and naturally wished to see their allies of the same faith with themselves;
but even this failed to procure him liberty to evangelist in Lausanne. The Council of
Sixty read the letter of their Excellencies of Bern, and civilly replied that "It
belonged not to them, but to the bishop and chapter, to admit preachers into the
pulpits." The Council of Two Hundred also found that they had no power in the matter.[10] Farel had again to depart and
leave those whom he would have led into the pastures of truth to the care of shepherds who
knew so in to feed but were so skillful to fleece their flocks.
Again turning northwards, he made a short halt at Morat. This time the victory of the
Gospel was complete, and this important town was placed (1529) in the list of Protestant
cities.[11] Farel
felt that a mighty unseen power was travelling with him, opening the understandings,
melting the hearts of men, and he would press on and win other cities and cantons to the
Gospel. He crossed the lovely lake and presented himself in Neuchatel, which had lately
returned under the scepter of its former mistress, Jeanne de Hochberg, the only daughter
and heiress of Philip, Count of Neuchatel, who died in 1503. [12] She regained in her widowhood the principality of Neuchatel, which
she had lost in the lifetime of her husband, Louis d'Orleans, Duke of Longueville. No one
could enter this city without having ocular demonstration that religion was the dominant
interest in it – meaning thereby a great cathedral on a conspicuous site, with a full
complement of canons, priests, and monks, who furnished the usual store of pomps, dramas,
indulgences, banquetings, and scandals. In the midst of a devotion of this sort, Neuchatel
was startled by a man of small stature, red beard, glittering eye, and stentorian voice,
who stood up in the market-place, and announced that he had brought a religion, not from
Rome, but from the Bible.
The men with shaven crowns were struck dumb with astonishment. When at length they found
their voices, they said, "Let us beat out his brains." "Duck him, duck
him," cried others.[13] They
fought with such weapons as they had; their ignorance forbade their opposing doctrine with
doctrine. Farel lifted up his voice above their clamor. His preaching was felt to be not
an idle tale, nor a piece of incomprehensible mysticism, but words of power – the
words of God. Neuchatel was carried by storm.[14] It did not as yet formally declare for Reform; but it was soon to
do so.
Having kindled the fire, and knowing that all the efforts of the priests would not succeed
in extinguishing it, Farel departed to evangelise in the mountains and valleys which lie
around the smiling waters of Morat and Neuchatel. It was winter (January, 1530), and cold,
hunger, and weariness were his frequent attendants. Every hour, more-over, he was in peril
of his life. The priests perfectly understood that if they did not make away with him he
would make away with "religion" – that is, with their tithes and offerings,
their processions and orgies. They did all in their power to save "religion."
They suspended their quarrels with one another, they stole some hours from their sleep,
they even stole some hours from the table in their zeal to warn their flocks against the
"wolf," and impress them with a salutary dread of what their fate would be,
should they become his prey. On one occasion, in the Val de Ruz, in the mountains that
overhang the Lake of Neuchatel, the Reformer was seized and beaten almost to death.[15]
Nothing, however, could stop him. He would, at times, mount the pulpit while the priest
was in the act of celebrating mass at the altar, and drown the chants of the missal by the
thunder of his eloquence. This boldness had diverse results. Sometimes the old bigotry
would resume its sway, and the audience would pull the preacher violently out of the
pulpit; at other times the arrow of conviction would enter. The priest would hastily strip
himself of stole and chasuble, and cast the implements of sacrifice from his hands, while
the congregation would demolish the altar, remove the images, and give in their adhesion
to the new faith. In three weeks' time four villages of the region had embraced the
Reformed faith. The first of these was the village of Kertezers, the church of which had
been given in the year 962 to the Abbey of Payerne, by Queen Berthe, wife of Rodolph II.,
King of Burgundy, foundress of the abbey. Since that time – that is, during 568 years
– the religious of Payerne had been the patrons of that church, the cure of which was
their vicar. As the Reformed were no longer served by him, they petitioned their superiors
at Bern for a Reformed pastor. Their request was granted, and it was arranged that the
Popish cure and the Protestant minister should divide the stipend between them.[16] The cups, pictures, marbles, and
other valuables of the churches were sold, and therewith were provided stipends for the
pastors, hospitals for the poor and sick, schools for the youth, and if aught remained it
was given to the State.[17] The
zeal of the citizens of Meiry outran their discretion. They overturned the altars and
images before the Reformation had obtained a majority of votes. This furnished occasion to
the Lords of Friburg to complain to those of Bern that their subjects in the Jura were
infringing the settlement that regulated the progress of the Protestant faith. A few
weeks, however, put all right, by giving a majority of votes in Meiry to the Reformation.
Thus did the Gospel cast down the strongholds of error, and its preacher, in the midst of
weakness, was triumphant. The spring and summer sufficed to establish the Reformed faith
in great part of this region.
The Protestant hero Farel was now advancing to complete his conquest of Neuchatel. During
his absence the Reformation had been fermenting. He entered the city at the right moment.
Despite the opposition of the princess, of George de Rive, her deputy, and the priests,
who sounded the tocsin to rouse the people, the magistrates, after deliberation, passed a
decree opening the cathedral to the Reformed worship; and the citizens, forming round
Farel, and climbing the hill on which the cathedral stood, placed him in the pulpit,
notwithstanding the resistance of the canons. The solemnity of the crisis hushed the vast
congregation into stillness. Farel's sermon was one of the most powerful he had ever
delivered, and when he closed, lo a mighty wind, felt though it could not be seen, passed
over the people! They all at once cried out, "We will follow the Protestant religion,
both we and our children; and in it will we live and die."
Having restored the Gospel with its sublime doctrines and its worship in the spirit, the
Neuchatelans felt that they had no longer need of those symbols by which Popery sets forth
its mysteries, and through which the material worship of its votaries is offered. They
proceeded forthwith to purge the church: they dismantled the altars, broke the images,
tore down the pictures and crucifixes, and carrying them out, cast them down from the
summit of the terrace on which the cathedral stands. At their feet slept the blue lake,
beyond was the fertile champaign, and afar, in the south, a chain of glittering peaks,
with the snowy crown of Mont Blanc rising grandly over all; but not an eye that day was
turned on this glorious panorama. They had broken from their own and their children's neck
an ancient yoke, and were intent only on obliterating all the signs and instruments of
their former slavery. In perpetual remembrance of this great day, the Neuchatelans
inscribed on a pillar of the cathedral the words – ON THE 23RD OCTOBER, 1530,
IDOLATRY WAS OVERTHROWN AND REMOVED FROM THIS CHURCH BY THE CITIZENS.[18]
CHAPTER 4 Back to Top
TUMULTS – SUCCESSES – TOLERATION.
Second Vote on Religion at Neuchatel – Vallangin – Disgraceful Trick –
Popular Tempest – Triumph of Reform – Farel turns his eye toward Geneva –
Evangelises at Orbe – Makes a Beginning – First Communion at Orbe – Peter
Viret – His Character – Goes to Grandson – A Battle in the Church –
The Affair carried to the Conference at Bern – Protestant Bern and Catholic Friburg
agree on a Policy of Toleration – Great Success of Farel – He turns toward
Geneva.
WAS the storm that swept over Neuchatel on the 23rd of
October, and which cleansed its cathedral-church of the emblems of superstition, a passing
gust, or one of those great waves which indicate the rising of the tide in the spiritual
atmosphere? Was it an outburst of mob-violence, provoked by the greed and tyranny of the
priests, or was it the strong and emphatically expressed resolution of men who knew and
loved the truth? If the former, the idols would again be set up; if the latter, they had
fallen to rise no more. This was tested on the 4th of November following. On that eventful
day the citizens of Neuchatel, climbing the hill on which stood the governor's castle,
hard by the cathedral that still bore traces of the recent tempest, in altars overturned,
niches empty, and images disfigured, presented themselves before the governor and deputies
from Bern. They had assembled to vote on the question whether Romanism or Protestantism
should be the religion of Neuchatel. A majority of eighteen votes gave the victory to the
Reformation. From that day (November 4, 1530) conscience was free in Neuchatel; no one was
compelled to abandon Popery, but the cathedral was henceforward appropriated to the
Protestant worship, and the Reformation was legally established.[1]
Vallangin, the town of next importance in this part of the Jura, followed soon thereafter
the example Neuchatel. The issue here was precipitated by a shameful expedient to which
the Papists had recourse, and which was of a sort that history refuses to chronicle. It
was a fair-day; Antoine Marcourt, the Pastor of Neuchatel, was preaching in the
market-place. A large and attentive congregation was listening to him, when a revolting
spectacle was exhibited which was contrived to affront the preacher, insult the audience,
and drive the Gospel from the place amid jeers and laughter.
The trick recoiled upon its authors. It was Popery that had to flee. A sudden gust of
indignation shook the crowd. The multitudes rushed toward the cathedral. Who shall now
save the saints? The priests have unchained winds which it is beyond their power to
control. Altar, image, and monumental statue, all went down before the tempest. The relics
were scattered about. Even the rich oriels, which flecked, with their glorious tints,
stone floor and massive column, were not spared. The edifice, all aglow but a few moments
before with the curious and beautiful picturings of chisel and pencil, was now a wreck.
The popular vengeance was not yet appeased. The furious multitude was next seen directing
its course towards the residences of the canons. The terrified clerics had already fled to
the woods, but if their persons escaped, their houses were sacked.
By-and-by the storm spent itself, and calmer feelings returned to the breasts of the
citizens. They ascended the hill on which stood the castle of the Countess of Arberg, who
governed Vallangin, under the suzerainty of Bern. The authorities trembled when they saw
them approach, and were greatly relieved when they learned that they had come with no more
hostile intent than to demand the punishment of the perpetrators of the outrage. The
countess gave orders for the punishment of the guilty, though she was suspected of
connivance in the affair. As to all beyond, the matter was referred to Bern, and their
Excellencies decided that the townspeople should pay for the works of art which they had
destroyed, and that the countess in return should grant the free profession of the
Reformed faith. The sum in which the citizens were amerced we do not know, but it must
have been large indeed if it did not leave them immense gainers by the exchange.[2]
By a sort of intuition it was Geneva that Farel all along had in his eye. The
victories which he won, and won with such rapidity and brilliancy, at the foot of the
Jura, and on the shores of its lakes, were but affairs of outposts. They were merely
stepping-stones upon his road, towards the conquest of that heroic little city, which
occupied a site where three great empires touched one another, and where he longed to
plant the Protestant standard. The idea was ever borne in upon his mind that Geneva had a
great part before it, that it was destined to become the capital of Swiss Protestantism,
and, in part, of French and Savoyard Protestantism also; for its higher destiny he did not
dare to forecast. Therefore he rejoiced in every victory he gained, seeing himself so much
the nearer what he felt must be his crowning conquest. But like a wise general he would
not advance too fast; he would leave behind him no post of the enemy untaken; he intended
that Geneva should be conquered once for all; he would enter its gates only after he had
subdued the country around, and hang out the banner of the Gospel upon its ramparts when
Geneva had become mistress of a renovated region. And it pleased the Captain whom he
served to give him his desire.
There was a short halt in the march of this spiritual conqueror. At St. Blaise, on the
northern shore of the Lake of Neuchatel, Farel was set upon by a mob, instigated by the
priests, and almost beaten to death. Covered with bruises, spitting. blood, and so
disfigured as scarcely to be recognized by his friends, he was put into a small boat,
carried across the lake, and nursed at Morat. He had barely recovered his strength when he
rose from bed, and set out for Orbe to evangelise. Orbe was an ancient town at the foot of
the Jura, on the picturesque banks of a stream of the same name. It lay nearer Geneva than
Neuchatel. Watered by rivulets from the mountains, the gardens that surrounded it were of
more than ordinary beauty and luxuriance, but spiritually Orbe was a wilderness, a
"land where no water was." The Reformer would have given it "living
water;" but, unhappily, Orbe, with its numerous priests, its rich convents, and its
famous sisters of St. Claire, some of whom were of royal lineage, did not thirst for such
water. Its good Catholics strove to render Farel's journey of no avail. With this view
they had recourse to expedients, some of which were tragic, others simply hdicrous. One of
them is worth chronicling for its originality. It was agreed to outmanceuvre the
evangelist by staying away – a masterly policy in the case of a preacher so
attractive – but in one instance the policy was departed from. One day, when Farel
entered the pulpit, a most extraordinary scene presented itself. He beheld three adults
only present, while the church was nearly filled with children – "brats."
The latter lay perfectly flat as if sound asleep. But the moment Farel began to preach
they jumped up, as puppets do when the string is pulled, and began to sing and dance, to
laugh and scream. Farel's voice was completely drowned by the noise. This scene continued
for some time; at length the little ragamuffins made their exit in an uproar of screaming
and howling. Farel was now left in quiet, but with no one to listen to him. "And
this," says a Popish chronicler, "was the first sermon preached in the town of
Orbe."[3]
Nevertheless the Reformer persevered. Soon a small but select number of converts
gathered round him, some of them of good position in society. On Pentecost, the 28th of
May, Farel celebrated the Lord's Supper, for the first time in Orbe, to a little
congregation of seven. Having preached in the morning, the bread and wine were placed on
the table, and the communicants received them kneeling. Farel demanded of them whether
they forgave one another, and receiving an affirmative reply, he distributed the elements
to them. In the afternoon the Papists entered the church, and commenced the chanting of
mass."[4]
Farel was beginning to think that Orbe was already won, when unhappily these bright
prospects were suddenly dashed by the indiscreet zeal of one of the evangelists. Thinking
to reform Orbe by a coup de main, this person, with the help of twelve companions, pulled
down one day all the images in its seven churches.[5] The destruction of the idols but prolonged the reign of idolatry.
A reaction set in, and it was not till twenty years thereafter that Orbe placed itself in
the rank of Reformed cities.
But if Orbe remained Roman it had the honor of giving to the Reformation one of its
loveliest spirits and most persuasive preachers. Peter Viret was born in this town in
1511. His father was a wool-dresser. Sweet, studious, and of elevated soul, the son gave
himself to the service of the altar. he was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he
remained about three years.
He attained the peace of the Gospel, like most of the Reformers, by passing through the
waters of anguish; but in his case "the floods" were not so deep as in that of
Luther and Calvin. When he returned to his native city, he entered the pulpit at the
entreaty of Farel, and preached to his townsmen. The sweetness of his voice, the beauty of
his ideas, and the modesty of his manner held his hearers captive. It was seen that he who
distributes to his servants as he pleases for the edification of his body, the Church, had
given to Viret his special gift. He did not possess the glowing imagery and bmuling ardor
of Luther, nor the fiery energy of Farel, nor the thrilling power of Zwingle, nor the
calm, towering, and all-mastering genius of Calvin; but his preaching, nevertheless, had a
charm which was not found in that of any of those great men. Clear, tender, persuasive
aided by the stircry tones of his voice, and the moral glow which lighted up his features,
its singular fascination and power were attested, in after-years, by the immense crowds
which gathered round him in Switzerland and the south of France, whenever he stood up to
preach. He was indeed a polished shaft in the hand of the Almighty.[6]
Farel had to fall back from before Orbe; but if he retreated it was to wage fi'esh
combats and to win new victories. He next visited Grandson, at the western extremity of
the Lake of Neuchatel. The priests, alarmed at his arrival, rose in arms, and drove him
away. Bern now interposed its authority for his protection. Their Excellencies would
compel no one to become a Protestant, but they were determined to permit the two faiths to
be heard, and the citizens to make their choice between the sermon and the mass. Taking
with him Viret, Farel returned to Grandson, where he was joined by a third, De Glutinis,
an evangelist from the Bernese Jura. They preached Sunday and weekday. The heresy was
breaking in like a torrent.
The priests strove to rear a bulwark against the devastating flood. They refuted, to the
best of their ability, the Protestant sermons. They called to their aid popular preachers
from the neighboring towns, and they organised processions and sacred chants to invigorate
the zeal and piety of their adherents. The tide, notwithstanding, continued to set in a
contrary direction to that in which they wished to force it to flow. Arming themselves,
they came to church to refute what they heard spoken there, not with arguments, but with
blows. The sacristan threatened Farel with a pistol which he had concealed under his
cloak; another attempted to assassinate Glutinis with a poignard. The ministers managed to
mount the pulpits, but were pulled from them, thrown down on the floor, trampled upon,
beaten, and when their friends rushed forward to defend them, the two parties fought over
their prostrate bodies, and a regular battle was seen going forward in the church.[7]
But a great good resulted from these lamentable proceedings. The matter was brought
before the Great Conference, which assembled, as we have previously related, at Bern in
January, 1532. The Swiss were drifting toward a civil war. It was hopeless to think of
conciliating the two parties that divided the nation, but was it necessary therefore that
they should cut one another's throats? Might it not be possible rather to bear with one
another's opinions? This was the device hit upon. It might appear to Rome, as it still
appears to her, an execrable one, but to the Conference it appeared preferable to the
crime and horror of internecine strife. Thus out of that necessity which is said to be the
mother of invention, came the idea of toleration. We deem the mass idolatry, said
Protestant Bern, but we shall prevent no one going to it. We deem the Protestant sermon
heresy, rejoined Popish Friburg, but we shall give liberty to all who wish to attend it.
Thus on the basis of liberty of worship was the public peace maintained. This dates in
Switzerland from January, 1532. [8] Toleration
was adopted as a policy before it had been accepted as a principle. It was practiced as a
necessity of the State before it had been promulgated as a right of conscience. It was
only when it came to be recognised and claimed in the latter character as a right founded
on a Divine charter – namely, the Word of God – and held irrespective of the
permission or the interdiction of man, that toleration established inviolably its
existence and reign.
In this manner did Farel carry on the campaign. Every hour he encountered new perils;
every day there awaited him fresh persecutions; but it more than consoled him to think
that he was winning victory after victory. He remembered that similar foes had beset the
path of the first preachers of the Gospel in the cities of Asia Minor at the beginning of
the Christian dispensation, to those which obstructed his own in the towns and villages of
this region. But in the face of that opposition, how marvellous had his success been
– not his, but that of the invisible Power that was moving before him! Among the
towns won to the Gospel – the beginning of his strength – he could count
Neuchatel, and Vallangin, and Morat, and Grandson, and Aigle, and Bex, and partially Orbe.
Every day the fields were growing ripe unto the harvest; able and zealous laborers were
coming to his aid in the reaping of it. By-and-by he hoped to carry home the last sheaf,
in the conversion of the little town which nestled at the southern extremity of the Leman
Lake, to which his longing eyes were so often turned. What joy would be his, could he
pluck it from the talons of Savoy and the grasp of Rome, and give it to the Gospel!
CHAPTER 5 Back to Top
FABEL ENTERS GENEVA.
Basin of the Rhone – Leman Lake – Grandeur of its Environs – The Region in
Former Times a Stronghold of Popery – Geneva – The Duke of Savoy Entreats the
Emperor to put him in Possession of it – The Hour Passes – Farel Enters Geneva
– Preaches – The Perfect Liberty – The Great Pardon – Beginning of a
New Geneva – Terror of the Priests – Farel and Saunier Summoned before the
Council – Protected by Letters from Bern – A Tumult – Farel narrowly
Escapes Death – Is Sent away from Geneva – Froment Comes in his Room –
Begins as Schoolmaster – His New Year's Day Sermon – Popular Agitation –
Retires from Geneva
THERE is no grander valley in Switzerland than the basin of
the Rhone, whose collected floods, confined within smiling shores, form the Leman. As one
looks toward sunrise, he sees on his right the majestic line of the white Alps; and on his
left, the picturesque and verdant Jura. The vast space which these magnificent chains
enclose is variously filled in. Its grandest feature is the lake. It is blue as the sky,
and motionless as a mirror. Nestling on its shores, or dotting its remoter banks, is many
a beautiful villa, many a picturesque town, almost drowned in the affluent foliage of
gardens and rich vines, which clothe the country that slopes upward in an easy swell
toward the mountains. In the remoter distance the eye ranges over a vast stretch of
pasture-lands and corn-fields, and forests of chestnuts and pine-trees. Above the dark
woods soar the great peaks, as finely robed as the plains, though after a different manner
– not with flowers and verdure, but with glaciers and snows.
But this fertile and lovely land, at the time we write of, was one of the strongholds of
the Papacy. Cathedrals, abbacies, rich convents, and famous shrines, which attracted
yearly troops of pilgrims, were thickly planted throughout the valley of the Leman. These
were so many fortresses by which Rome kept the country in subjection. In each of these
fortresses was placed a numerous garrison. Priests and monks swarmed like the locusts. The
land was fat, yet one wonders how it sustained so numerous and ravenous a host. In Geneva
alone there were nine hundred priests. In the other towns and villages around the lake,
and at the foot of the Jura, they were not less numerous in proportion. Cowls and shorn
crowns, frocks and veils, were seen everywhere. This generation of tonsured men and veiled
women formed the "Church;" and the dues they exacted of the lay population, and
the processions, chants, exorcisms, and blows which they gave them in return, were styled
"religion." The man who would go down into this region of sevenfold blackness,
and attack these sons of the Roman Anak, who here tyrannised so mercilessly over their
wretched victims, had indeed need of a stout heart and a strong faith.
He had need to be clad in the armor of God in going forth to such a battle. This man was
William Farel. The spiritual campaigns of the sixteenth century produced few such
champions. "His sermons," says D'Aubigne, "were actions quite as much as a
battle is." We have already chronicled what he did in these "wars of the
Lord" in the Pays de Vaud; we are now to be engaged in the narrative of his work in
Geneva.
We have brought down the eventful story of this little city to the time when it formed an
alliance with Bern and Friburg. This brought it a little help in the battle which it had
maintained hitherto single-handed against tremendous odds. The duke had left it, and
placed the Alps between himself and it, but he had not lost sight of it. Despairing of
being able to reduce it by his own power, he sent a messenger to Charles V. at Augsburg,
entreating him to send his soldiers and put him in possession of Geneva. Most willingly
would the emperor have put these haughty citizens under the feet of the duke, but his own
hands were at that moment too full to attempt any new enterprise. The Lutheran princes of
Germany, as stubborn in their own way as the Genevans were in theirs, were occasioning
Charles a world of anxiety, and he could give the duke nothing but promises. The emperor's
plan, as communicated to the duke's envoy, was first to "crush the German
Protestants, and then bring his mailed hand down on the Huguenots of Geneva."[1] Geneva meanwhile had respite.
The Treaty of Nuremberg shortly afterwards set Charles V. free on the side of Germany, and
left him at liberty to convert the promises he had made the duke into deeds. But the hour
to strike had now passed; a mightier power than the emperor had entered Geneva.
Returning from the Waldensian synod in the valley of Angrogna, in October, 1532, Farel,
who was accompanied by Saunter, could not resist his long-cherished desire of visiting
Geneva. His arrival was made known to the friends of liberty in that city,[2] and the very next day the elite
of the citizens waited on him at his inn, the Tour Perce, on the left bank of the Rhone.
He preached twice, setting forth the glorious Gospel of the grace of God. The topic of his
first address was Holy Scripture, the fountain-head of all Divine knowledge, in
contradistinction to tradition of Fathers, or decree of Council, and the only authority on
earth to which the conscience of man was subject. This opened the gates of a higher
liberty than these men had yet understood, or aspired to. They had been shedding their
blood for their franchises, but now the Reformer showed them a way by which their souls
might escape from the dark dungeon in which tradition and human authority had succeeded in
shutting them up. The next day Farel proclaimed to them the great pardon of God –
which consisted, according to his exposition, in the absolutely free forgiveness of
sinners bestowed on the footing of an absolutely full and perfect expiation of human
guilt; and this he placed in studious opposition to the pardon of the Pope, which had to
be bought with money or with penances. This was a still wider opening of the gates of a
new world to these men. "This," said Farel, "is the Gospel; and this, and
nothing short of this, is liberty, inasmuch as it is the enfranchisement of the whole man,
body, conscience, and soul."[3] The
words of the Reformer did not fall on dull or indifferent hearts. The generous soil,
already watered with the blood of the martyrs of liberty, now received into its bosom a
yet more precious seed. The Old Geneva passed away, and in its place came a New Geneva,
which the wiles of the Pope should not be able to circumvent, nor the arms of the emperor
to subdue.
The priests learned, with a dismay bordering on despair, that the man who had passed like
a devastating tempest over the Pays de Vand, his track marked by altars overturned, images
demolished, and canons, monks, and nuns fleeing before him in terror, had come hither
also. What was to be done? Effectual steps must be promptly taken, otherwise all would be
lost. The gods of Geneva would perish as those of Neuchatel had done.[4]
Farel and Saunter were summoned before the town council.[5] The majority of the magistrates received them with angry looks,
some of them with bitter words; but happily Farel carried letters from their Excellencies
of Bern, with whom Geneva was in alliance, and whom the councillors feared to offend. The
Reformers, thus protected, after some conference, left the council-chamber unharmed.
Their acquittal awakened still more the fears of the priests, and as their fear grew so
did their anger. Armed clerics were parading the streets; there was a great flutter in the
convents. "A shabby little preacher," said one of the sisters of St. Claire,
with a toss of the head, "Master William Farel, has just arrived."[6] The townspeople were breaking
out in tumults. What next was thought of? An episcopal council met, and under a pretext of
debating the question it summoned the two preachers before them. Two magistrates
accompanied them to see that they returned alive. Some of the episcopal council had come
with arms under their sacerdotal robes. Such was their notion of a religious discussion.
The Reformers were asked by what authority they preached? Farel replied by quoting the
Divine injunction, "Preach the Gospel to every creature." The meek majesty of
the answer only provoked a sneer. In a few minutes the council became excited; the members
started to their feet; they flung themselves upon the two evangelists; they pulled them
about; they spat upon them, exclaiming, "Come, Farel, you wicked devil, what makes
you go up and down thus? Whence comest thou? What business brings you to our city to throw
us into trouble?" When the noise had a little subsided, Farel made answer
courageously, "I am not a devil; I am sent by God as an ambassador of Jesus Christ; I
preach Christ crucified – dead for our sins – risen again for our justification;
he that believeth upon him hath eternal life; he that believeth not is condemned."
"He blasphemes; he is worthy of death," exclaimed some. "To the Rhone, to
the Rhone!" shouted others; "it were better to drown him in the Rhone than
permit this wicked Lutheran to trouble all the people." "Speak the words of
Christ, not of Caiaphas," replied Farel. This was the signal for a yet more ferocious
outbreak. "Kill the Lutheran hound," exclaimed they. Dom Bergeri, proctor to the
chaplain, cried, "Strike, strike!" They closed round Farel and Saunier; they
took hold of them; they struck at them. One of the Grand Vicar's servants, who carried an
arquebus, levelled it at Farel; he pulled the trigger; the priming flashed.[7] The clatter of arms under the
vestments of the priests foreboded a tragic issue to the affair; and doubtless it would
speedily have terminated in this melancholy fashion, but for the vigorous interposition of
the two magistrates.[8]
Rescued from the perils of the episcopal council-hall, worse dangers, if possible,
threatened them outside. A miscellaneous crowd of clerics and laics, armed with clubs and
swords, waited in the street to inflict upon the two heretics the vengeance which it was
just possible they might escape at the hands of the vicar and canons.[9] When the mob saw them appear,
they brandished their weapons, and raising a frightful noise of hissing and howling, made
ready to rush upon them. It looked as if they were fated to die upon the spot. At the
critical moment a band of halberdiers, headed by the syndics, came up, and closing their
ranks round the two Reformers escorted them, through the scowling and hooting crowd, to
their inn, the Tour Perce. A guard was stationed at the door all night. Next morning, at
an early hour, appeared a few friends, who taking Farel and Saunter, and leading them to
the shore of the lake, made them embark in a small boat, and, carrying them over the quiet
waters, landed them in the Pays de Vand, at an unfrequented spot between Merges and
Lausanne. Thence Farel and Saunter went on to Grandson. Such was the issue of Farel's
first essay in a city on which his eye and heart had so long rested. It did not promise
much; but he had accomplished more than he at the moment knew.
In fact, Farel was too powerful, and his name was of too great prestige, to begin the
work. The seeds of such a work must be deposited by a gentle hand, they must grow up in a
still air, and only when they have taken root may the winds be suffered to blow. Of this
Farel seems to have become sensible, for we find him looking around for a humbler and
feebler instrument to send to Geneva. He cast eyes on the young and not very courageous
Froment, and dispatched him to a city where he himself had almost been torn in pieces.[10] While Froment was on his way
another visitor unexpectedly appeared to the Genevans. A comet blazed forth in their sky.
What did it portend? War, said some; the rising of a Divine light, said others.[11]
Froment's appearance was so mean that even the Huguenots, as the friends of liberty
and progress in Geneva were styled, turned their backs upon him. What was he to do?
Froment recalled Farel's example at Aigle, and resolved to turn schoolmaster. He hired a
room at the Croix d'Or, near the Molard, and speedily his fame as a teacher of youth
filled Geneva. The lessons Froment taught the children in the school, the children taught
the parents when they went home. Gradually, and in a very short while, the class grew into
a congregation of adults, the school-room into a church, and the teacher into an
evangelist. Reading out a chapter he would explain it with simplicity and impressiveness.
Thus did he scatter the seed upon hearts; souls were converted; and the once despised
evangelist, who had been, like a greater missionary, "a root out of a dry
ground" to the Genevans, now saw crowds pressing around him and drinking in his
words.[12]
This was in the end of the year 1532. The work proceeded apace. Among the converts
were certain rich and honorable women: we mention specially Paula, the wife of John Lever,
and Claudine, her sister-in-law. Their conversion made a great sensation in Geneva. By
their means their husbands and many of their acquaintances were drawn to hear the
schoolmaster at the Croix d'Or, and embraced the Gospel. From the Pays de Vaud, arrived
New Testaments, tracts, and controversial works; and these, distributed among the
citizens, opened the eyes of many who had not courage to go openly to the schoolmaster's
sermon. Tradesmen and people of all conditions enrolled themselves among the disciples.
The social principle of Christianity began to operate; those who were of one faith drew
together into one society, and meeting at stated times in one another's houses, they
strove to instruct and strengthen each other. Such were the early days of the Genevan
Church.
First came faith – faith in the free forgiveness of the Gospel – next came good
works A reformation of manners followed in Geneva. The Reformed ceased to frequent those
fashionable amusements in which they had formerly delighted. They banished finery from
their dress, and luxury from their banquets. They made no more costly presents to the
saints, and the; money thus saved they bestowed on the poor, and especially the Protestant
exiles whom the rising storms of persecution in France compelled to flee to the gates of
Geneva as to a harbour of refuge. There was hardly a Protestant of note who did not
receive into his house one of these expatriated Christians,[13] and in this way Geneva learned that hospitality for which it is
renowned to this day.
The congregation of Froment in a few weeks grew too large for the modest limits of the
Croix d'Or. One day a greater concourse than usual assembling at his chapel door, and
pressing in vain for admittance, the cry was raised, "To the Molard!" To the
Molard the crowd marched, carrying with them the preacher. It was New Year's Day, 1533.
The Molard was the market-square, and here, mounted on a fish-stall – the first
public pulpit in Geneva – Froment preached to the multitude. It was his "New
Year's gift," as it has been called. Having prayed, he began his sermon [14] by announcing that "free
pardon"–the ray from the open heavens which leads the eye upward to the throne
of a Savior – which all the Reformers, treading in the steps of the apostles, placed
in the foreground of their teaching. From this he went on to present to his hearers the
lineaments of the "false prophets" and "idolatrous priests" as painted
in the Old and New Testaments, pointing out the exact verification of these features in
the Romish hierarchy of their own day. Froment's delineations were so minute, so graphic
and fearless, that his hearers saw the prophets of Baal, and the Pharisees of a corrupt
Judaism, living over again in the priests of their own city. The preacher had become warm
with his theme, and the audience were kindling in sympathy, when a sound of hurrying
footsteps was heard behind them. On turning round a band of armed men was seen entering
the square. The lieutenant of the city, the procurator-fiscal, the soldiers, and a number
of armed priests, exasperated by this public manifestation of the converts, had come to
arrest Froment, and disperse the assembly. Had the preacher been captured, it is not
doubtful what his fate would have been, but the band returned without their prey. His
friends carried him off to a place of hiding.[15]
The agitation of the citizens and the violence of the priests made the farther
prosecution of Froment's ministry in Geneva hopeless. He withdrew quietly from the city,
and returned to his former charge in the village of Yvonand, at the foot of the Jura.[16] The foundations of Protestant
Geneva had been laid: greater builders were to rear the edifice.
CHAPTER 6 Back to Top
GENEVA ON THE BRINK OF CIVIL WAR.
First Communion in Geneva – Plot to Massacre all the Converts – Canon Wernli
– The Roman Catholics take Arms – The City on the Brink of Civil War – The
Battle Averted – Another Storm – Canon Wernli Arms and Rings the Tocsin –
He is Slain – Bern Interposes – The Council Permits by Edict the Free Preaching
of the Gospel in Geneva – The Pope Commands the Bishop to Return to the City –
He Blunders and Retires – Froment Returns – Farel and Viret Arrive in Geneva
– Dejection of the Roman Catholics.
THE workman had retired, but the work went on. The
Protestants, now grown to a goodly number, and full of zeal and hope, met in each other's
houses – the catacombs of the young Church, as an old author styles these meetings.
They read the Scriptures in Lefevre's translation; they elected Guerin, one of the more
intelligent and esteemed among them, to "the charge of the Word," in the room of
Froment; and they still further strengthened their bond of union by partaking together of
the Lord's Supper. It occasioned them some anxiety where they should find a spot
sufficiently secluded for the celebration of the ordinence. The place ultimately made
choice of was a little walled garden near the city gates.[1]
The time of year was the middle of March. The preparations were simple indeed
– a few benches, a table spread with a white cloth, on which were displayed the bread
and wine, that were to become to these disciples the memorials of Christ's death, and the
token and seal of their interest in its blessings. Guerin took his seat at the head of the
table, and began the service. At that moment the sun, rising over the Alps, a his first
rays upon the little company, an outward emblem of the real though spiritual presence of
that Savior of whom it was foretold –
This seemed to them an auspicious token.[3] The growing numbers and zeal of
the disciples again drew upon them the anger of the priests, and Guerin had to withdraw
and follow Froment into exile at Yvonand.[4] Geneva, like a ship laboring in a tempestuous sea, was casting out
one Protestant laborer after another, but it could not cast out the Gospel.
Bern next appeared upon the stage, and demanded that its ally Geneva should grant liberty
to the preaching of the Gospel in it.[5] The friends of the duke and of Rome – the Mamelukes, as they
were called – saw that matters had come to a crisis. They must extirpate Lutheranism
from Geneva, otherwise they should never be at rest; but Lutheranism they could hope to
extirpate not otherwise than by extirpating all the Lutherans. The council hesitated and
procrastinated, for the majority of its members were still Roman Catholic; but the canons,
priests, and chief partisans of Romanism neither hesitated nor procrastinated. They met in
the Vicar-General's council-hall (Thursday, 27th May, 1533); they came armed to the teeth,
and the issue of their deliberations, which were conducted by torch-light, was to kill all
the Protestants in Geneva without one exception.[6] The conspirators, raising their hands, bound themselves by a
solemn oath.[7] They
now dispersed for a brief repose, for the plot was to be executed on the day following.
The morrow came, and the conspirators assembled in the cathedral, to the number of 700. [8] The first to enter was Canon
Wernli. He came clad in armor. He was as devoted a Romanist as he was a redoubtable
warrior. He was a Samson for strength, and could wield his battle-axe as he might fling
about his breviary. In waging war with the hydra of heresy which had broken into the Roman
Catholic fold of Geneva he would strike once, and would not strike a second time. This
zealous priest and valiant soldier was the real captain of the band, which was ostensibly
led by Syndic Baud, in his "great hat and plume of feathers."
Having marshalled in front of the high altar of St. Peter's, this troop, which included
300 armed priests, put itself in motion. With banners displayed, crosses uplifted, axes
and swords brandished, while the great bell of the cathedral sent forth its startling and
ominous peals, it marched down the street of the Perron to the Molard, and drew up in
battle array. Various armed detachments continued to arrive from other quarters, and their
junction ultimately swelled the Roman Catholic host to about 2,500. They felt sure of
victory. Here they stood, their cannons and arquebuses loaded, awaiting the word for
action: and chafing at those little hindrances which ever and anon occurred to keep them
back from battle, as chafes the war-horse against the bit that curbs his fiery impatience
to plunge into the fight.[9]
This army, drawn up in order of battle in the Molard, received a singular
reinforcement. The wives and mothers of the Romanists appeared on the scene of action,
their aprons filled with stones, by their side their little children of from twelve to
fourteen, whom they had brought to take part in this holy war and into whose hands they
had put such weapons as they were able to wield. So great was the zeal of these Amazons
against heresy! Meanwhile, what were the Protestants doing or thinking? At the first alarm
they assembled in the house of Baudichon de la Maisonneuve, one of the most courageous of
their leaders. His mansion was situated on the left bank of the Rhone, some 400 paces from
the Molard. The converts felt how terrible was the crisis, but their hearts were fixed,
trusting on him who holds the tempests and whirlwinds in his hands. He had but to speak,
and that storm would dispel as suddenly as it had gathered. The plan of the Romanists was
to march to Baudichon's house, set fire to it, and massacre the heretics one by one as
they escaped from the flames. The proposal of burning them came to the ears of the
Protestants; their numbers had now considerably increased; all were well armed and of good
courage; they resolved to march out and stand for their lives. Descending into the street,
they drew up five deep in presence of the enemy.
There was deep stillness. It would be broken the next moment by the shock of murderous
battle. The cannons and arquebuses were loaded; the halberds grasped; the swords
unsheathed; and stones and other missiles were ready to be poured in to complete the work
of death. But it pleased the Great Disposer to stay the tempest when it seemed on the very
point of bursting.
There chanced at that time to be seven Friburg merchants sojourning in Geneva.[10] Touched by the lamentable
spectacle of the citizens in arms to shed one another's blood, they came forward at the
critical moment to mediate. "Blessed are the peace-makers." Going first to the
Roman Catholics and then to the Reformed, they represented to the former how foolish it
was to shed their blood "to satisfy the appetite of their priests,"[11] and pointed out to the latter
how tremendous were the odds that stood arrayed against them. With much ado they succeeded
in calming the passions of both parties. The priests, however, of whom 160 were in arms,
refused to lend an ear to these pacific counsels. But finding that if they persisted they
should have to fight it out by themselves, they at last came to terms.[12] The insane fury of the
inhabitants having now given place to the natural affections, tears of joy welcomed
fathers and husbands as at night they stepped across the thresholds of their homes. Terms
of pacification were afterwards drawn up which left the balance inclining somewhat in
favor of liberty of conscience. [13]
But soon again another storm darkened over that city within which two mighty
principles were contending. The magistrates might issue edicts, the leaders of the two
parties might sign pacifications, but settled peace there could be none for Geneva till
the Gospel should have established its sway in the hearts of a majority of its citizens.
On the 4th May, just five weeks after the affair we have narrated, another tumult broke
out. Its instigator was the same bellicose ecclesiastic who figured so prominently on the
28th March – Canon Wernli. "This good champion of the faith," as Sister
Jeanne, who kept a journal of these occurrences, calls him, had that morning celebrated,
with unusual pomp, the Feast of "The Holy Winding-sheet," in St. Peter's.
"Taking off his sacerdotal robes, he put on his breast-plate and cuishes, belted his
sword to his side, seized his heavy halberd,"[14] and issued forth to do battle for the Church. Followed by a party
of priests to whose haalds the arquebus came quite as readily as the breviary, Wernli
strode down the Perton to his old battle-field, the Molard By this time night had fallen;
alarming rumors were propagated through the city, and to add to the terror of the
inhabitants, the tocsin began to ring out its thundering peals. Many on both sides, Roman
Catholics and Reformers, mostly armed, rushed into the street. There Canon Wernli, unable
to distinguish friend from foe in the darkness, was shouting out to his assailants to come
on; but as no one answered the challenge, he fell to dealing blows right and left among
the crowd. Some one slipped behind him, and espying an opening in his iron coat, thrust
his poignard into his body. The shouts ceased, the tumult gradually subsided, the night
passed, and when the morning broke Canon Wernli was found lying in his armor, on the
doorsteps of one of the houses, stark dead.[15]
If the death of this Papal champion lessened the dangers of the Reformed within the
city, it multiplied their enemies without. Wernli belonged to a powerful family of the
Popish Canton of Friburg, and ambassadors from that State now appeared at Geneva demanding
the punishment of all concerned in the canon's death – that is, of all the Reformed.
The Reformation seemed about to be sacrificed on the tomb of Wernli. Protestant Bern
instantly stepped forward in its defense. Bern proved itself the more powerful. Its
ambassadors induced the syndics and council, as the only escape from the chaos that
encompassed them, to proclaim liberty to all to abide by the mass, or to follow
Protestantism, as their conscience might dictate.[16] This decree, which advanced the landmarks of liberty
theoretically, but hardly as yet practically, brought matters to a head in Geneva.
For some time many eyes had been watching from abroad the struggle going on in this little
town on the shores of the Leman. The extraordinary bravery and energy of its citizens had
invested it with a charm that rivetted upon it the eye of both friend and foe, and
inspired them with the presentiment that it had a great part to play in the new times that
were opening. It caused many all hour of anxious thought to Clement VII. in the Vatican.
Charles V. could not but wonder that, while so many great kingdoms owned his sway, this
little city resisted his will. He had written to these haughty burghers peremptorily
commanding them to forsake the evil paths of heresy. They had gone their own way
notwithstanding.
Strong measures must be taken with this rebellious town. Its prince-bishop, Pierre de la
Baume, was absent from Geneva, and had been so for some while. The free manners of the
citizens did not suit him, and he took up his abode at Arbois, on the other side of the
Jura, in a quiet neighborhood, where the wine was good. The prince-bishop cared for his
Church, of course, but he cared also for his dinner; but Geneva was on the point of being
lost; and the Pope, at the risk of spoiling the bishop's digestion, ordered him, under
pain of excommunication, to return thither, and try his hand at reducing to their
obedience his mutinous subjects. Pierre de la Baume had but little heart for the task, but
it was enjoined upon him under a threat which he trembled to incur, and so, provided with
an armed escort, he returned (lst July, 1533) to Geneva.
He but helped to ruin the cause he had come to uphold, he would give Lutheranism, not an
open execution, but a secret burial. Accordingly, inviting the chiefs of the Protestant
movement to his palace, no sooner had they entered it than the bishop closed the doors,
threw his guests into irons, and proceeded to dispose of them by consigning one to this
dungeon, and another to that. In this summary proceeding of their bishop the council saw a
flagrant violation of the franchises of Geneva. It was the attack on liberty, not religion
– for three of the four syndics were still Roman Catholic – that awakened their
indignation. The senators produced their ancient charter, which the bishop had sworn to
observe, and claimed the constitutional right, in which it vested them, of trying all
inculpated citizens. The bishop found himself caught in the trap he had so cunningly set
for others. If he should open his dungeons, he would confess to having sustained a most
humiliating defeat; if he should retain his prisoners in bonds, he would draw upon his
head one of those popular tempests of which he was so greatly afraid. Choosing the former
as the less formidable alternative, he gave up his prisoners to their lawful judges.
But even this did not restore the bishop's tranquillity. His guilty imagination was
continually conjuring up tumults and assassinations; and, fleeing when no man pursued, he
secretly quitted Geneva, just fourteen days after he had entered it.[17] He left the cause of Rome in a
worse position than he had found it, and the Pope saw that he had better have left the
craven bishop to enjoy his quiet and his wine at Arbois. When the shepherd of the flock
had fled, what so likely to happen as that the "wolf" would return? The
"wolf" did return. Froment, with a companion by his side, Alexander Canus,
reappeared upon the scene which the bishop had been in such haste to quit. These
evangelists preached in private houses, and when these no longer sufficed for the crowds
that assembled, they proclaimed the "good news" in the streets. The bishop, who
learned what was going on, fulminated a missive from his quiet asylum, in the hope of
driving the destroyer out of the fold he had deserted. "Why," said the Genevans,
"did he not remain and keep the door closed?" The priests complained to the
council, laying the bishop's letter upon the table. Their remonstrance only served to show
that the tide was rising. "Preach the Gospel," answered the council, "and
say nothing that cannot be proved by Holy Scripture." These words, which are still to
be read in the city registers, made Protestantism a religio licita (a tolerated faith) in
Geneva.[18] The
bishop, in his own way, threw oil upon the fire by a second and more energetic letter,
forbidding the preaching in Geneva, secretly or publicly, of "the holy page," of
"the holy Gospel." [19] Further,
Furbity, a frothy and abusive preacher of the Dominican order, was brought to oppose the
Reformed. The violence of his harangues evoked a popular tumult, and the waters of liberty
retreating for a moment from the limits Which they had reached, Froment and Canus had to
retire from Geneva.
But speedily the tide turned, this time to overpass a long way its furthest limits
hitherto. On the 21st December, 1533, Farel entered the gates of Geneva, not again to
leave it till the Reformation had been consummated in it. The Roman Catholics felt that a
life-and-death struggle had commenced.
The citizens assembled to the sermons of Farel with helmets on their heads, and arquebuses
and halberds in their hands. The priests, divining the true source of the movement,
published from all the pulpits on the 1st of January, 1534, an order commanding all copies
of the Bible, whether in French or in German, to be burned.[20] For three days and nights the city was under arms; the one party
arming to defend, the other to expel the Bible. Froment arrived to the help of Farel.
There came yet another – Viret, who joined them in a few weeks. Farel, Viret, Froment
– the three most powerful preachers in the French tongue – are now in Geneva.
These three are an army. Their weapon is the Word of God. Clad in the panoply of light,
and wielding the sword of the Spirit, these three warriors will do more to batter down the
stronghold of Rome than all that the nine hundred priests in Geneva can do to uphold it.
The knell of the Papacy has sounded in this city; low responsive wailings begin to be
heard along the foot of the Alps and the crest of the Jura, mourning the approaching fall
of an ancient system. The echoes travel to France, to England, and to Germany, and
wherever they come the friends of the Gospel and of liberty look up, while the adherents
of Rome hang their heads, weighed down by the presentiment of a terrible disaster about to
befall their cause.
CHAPTER 7 Back to Top
HEROISM OF GENEVA.
Conspiracy against Geneva – Detection – Protestants gain Possession of one of
the Churches – The Gospel in Geneva – Glories Near but Unseen – An Army of
Pilgrims – A Hunting Party – The Game not Caught – Roman Catholic Exodus
– The Duke and the Emperor Combine against Geneva – Perils of the City –
Heroic Resolution of the Citizens – The Suburbs Demolished – The Citizens Wait
the Assault.
GENEVA had much to dare and to endure during the year and a
half that was yet to elapse before its struggles should be crowned with victory. Three
powerful parties – the prince-bishop, the Duke of Savoy, and their Excellencies of
Friburg – jointly conspired against the liberties of the brave little town.[1] The bishop secretly appointed a
lieutenant-general to govern in his name, investing him with all the powers of the State;
the duke sent blank warrants to be filled in with the names of those whom it might be
necessary to apprehend and execute, and the Lords of Friburg were to cooperate with the
Mamelukes within the city. All had been excellently planned; but the blow which the bishop
meditated against the State of Geneva fell upon himself and his accomplices. The plot was
discovered; the agents who were to have executed it suffered the doom of traitors; the
bishop, caught plotting, became nearly as odious to the Roman Catholics as he already was
to the Protestants; and the popular reaction which ensued filled the curule chairs, at
next election, with the friends of the Reform.
The Reformers, now numerous, and taunted sometimes with worshipping in holes and corners,
resolved no longer to submit to the stigma of being obliged to celebrate their worship in
private houses. They said to the magistrates, "Give us one of the churches of the
city." The Council, wishing to hold the balance even between them and the Roman
Catholics, excused themselves by saying that this was a matter that lay outside their
jurisdiction; but, added they, "you are strong, and if you are pleased to take one of
the churches of your own accord, we cannot prevent you."
The converts did not delay to act upon the hint. The brave Baudichon de la Maisonneuve
marching at their head, they proceeded to the Convent of the Rive and appropriated for
their use the "Grand Auditory," or cloister,[2] which might contain from four to five thousand persons. They rang
the bells; the report ran that Farel was to preach; and crowds from every part of the city
came streaming to the Rive. The monks could only stare. Rising up in his ordinary dress,
Farel preached to the overflowing congregation. That was a day much to be remembered in
Geneva. It needs neither many nor learned words to proclaim the Gospel. It is a message
from the throne of heaven to the guilty children of earth, to this effect, that God,
having sent his Son to suffer in their room, offers them a free pardon.
The Genevans were amazed to find that the Gospel was so simple a matter, and could be so
soon told. They had been taught from their cradle that it needed gorgeous cathedrals,
blazing tapers, splendidly apparelled priests, chants, and incense to set it forth, and
that wanting mystic rites it refused to impart its efficacy to the worshipper; now they
found that one attired in a plain dress, and in a single plain sentence, could declare it
all. But that little sentence they found was a ray that revealed to them a whole world of
glory. The chant of the priest had entered the ear only, Farel's words sunk into the
heart: the taper had but flashed its light on the eye, the Gospel shed its glory on the
soul. A moral phenomenon was now accomplished before this people, analogous to the natural
one which often takes place in this same region. So long as the mists and clouds veil the
Alps, these mountains, even to the men living at their feet, are as if they did not exist.
But let the clouds lift, or let the breeze make an opening in the mist, and lo! a world of
Alpine grandeurs is suddenly revealed to the eye of the spectator. A moment ago there hung
before him a curtain of dull vapor; now there is seen a glorious array of mountains, with
their gorges, rocks, and pine forests, their snows and flashing pinnacles. As near, yet as
unseen, were the evangelical glories of the spiritual world to the Genevans. These glories
were completely hidden by the black cloud of ignorance and superstition that hung between
them and the Bible. But the moment that cloud began to be parted by the preaching of the
Gospel and the breath of the Spirit, a new world was disclosed, a world of truth. It stood
out, distinct, palpable, complete, in an affluence of spiritual glory, and a fullness of
moral power, which made the Genevans wonder what blinding influence it was that had hidden
from their eye what was all the time so near, and yet so entirely unseen.
The Gospel had entered Geneva. The city was taken. How much the Reformation had gained,
and how much Rome had lost, in the conquest of that little town, future years were to
enable men fully to understand. But the Protestants of Geneva had many efforts and
sacrifices yet to undergo if they would retain the victory which had in reality been won.
Geneva was far too important a post for the Romanists to let it slip without another great
effort. This was resolved upon. In the middle of May the priests of the surrounding
districts organised a great procession of pilgrims, who knew how to handle other things
than their rosaries. The pious troop appeared at the gates of Geneva, duly furnished with
banners, crosses, and relics; but the citizens, recollecting the story of the Trojan
horse, and fearing that if the pilgrims entered their devotions might take a militant
turn, and the war-cry be raised for the psalm, refused to admit the devout host. They
could pray outside the walls. So this danger passed away.
The next army that marched to assail the little town, where the light of the Gospel was
burning more brightly every day, came not in the guise of pilgrims, but of soldiers. The
bishop had formed a new plot. The Romanist Lords of Vaud and Savoy, at the instigation of
the bishop and the duke, had arranged a hunting party for the last day of July, 1534, the
real game which the armed sportsmen meant to run down being the Genevan Lutheran. The
Papists within the city were to act in concert with those without. Some 300 armed
foreigners had been secretly introduced into the town; the keeper of the artillery had
been bribed; the midnight signals agreed upon; and the bishop, dividing the prey before he
had caught it, had confiscated in favor of his followers the goods of the Genevan
heretics. In short, everything had been done to insure success.
The night came; the peasants of the surrounding country, having armed themselves, began to
move on Geneva, some by land, others by water. The Bailiff of Chablais and the Baron de
Rollo alone led 8,000 men. The Papists in the city had armed secretly, and were assembling
in one another's houses.[3] The
citizens, all save the accomplices of the bishop, were ignorant of the plot, and many of
them had already gone to rest as usual. All was progressing as the invaders wished. But
that Providence which had been ploughing this field for more than twenty years, was not to
abandon it to the enemy at the very moment when the seed which had been sown in it was
shooting up, and the harvest at hand. A friend of the Gospel, Jacques Maubuisson,[4] from Dauphine, solicited an
interview with the premier syndic at an early hour of the evening. He was admitted, and
startled the magistrate by telling him that the city was surrounded with armed men.
Instantly the citizens were aroused and got under arms.
The host outside the walls were meanwhile straining their eyes to catch through the
darkness the first gleam of the torches, which were to be waved on the tops of the houses
of their friends as the signal to begin the assault. All suddenly a brilliant light shone
forth from the summit of the steeple of St. Peter's. That was the place, the invaders
knew, where the city-watch were usually stationed. It was plain the plot had been
discovered. "We are betrayed! we are betrayed!" they exclaimed; "we shall
never enter Geneva!"[5] Fiercer
and yet fiercer, as it seemed to the eyes of the Savoyards, glared that beacon-light.
Panic seized their ranks, and when the morning broke the citizens of Geneva beheld from
their steeples and ramparts the armies of the invaders in full retreat. By the time the
sun rose the last foe had disappeared. As a dream, short but terrible, so did the events
of that night appear to the Genevans.[6]
The miscarriage of the plot was followed by an exodus of Romanists from the city.
Many of the Mamelukes, as they were termed, fled, and thus the priests were left without
flocks, the churches without worshippers, and the images without votaries. The Protestants
were more than ever masters of the situation. In the final struggles of the Papacy in
Geneva we behold what has since been repeated in our own day, on the wider arena of
Europe, that every attempt to raise it up has only helped to cast it down.
Yet another effort – that is, as things were going with the Papacy, another plunge,
the last and the deepest. The duke and the bishop were but the more enraged by their
repeated discomfitures. They resolved that they would extinguish Lutheranism, or sweep the
little town in which it had entrenched itself from off its rock, and make it, like old
Tyre, a place for the spreading of nets by the shores of its lake. Considering the
resources which the duke had at his command, neither he nor any one else could see how he
should not be able to do his pleasure upon the audacious little city. Geneva had an enemy,
it may be said, in every man outside her walls. The castles that hemmed her in on all
sides were filled with armed men ready to march at the first summons. Before beginning the
war which was to make the rebellious town put its haughty neck under his feet, Duke
Charles III. sent his ultimatum to the citizens. They must send away their preachers
– Farel, Viret, and Froment; they must take back their bishop, and return within the
bosom of their holy mother the Church. On these terms the duke, good and kind man, would
give them his forgiveness.[7] The
Genevans made answer that sooner than do this they would bury themselves beneath the ruins
of their city. Even their good ally, Bern, despairing of their success, or else gained by
the flatteries of the duke, counselled the Genevans to submit. A Diet of the Swiss cantons
met at Lucerne in January, 1535, to determine on the matter. They had no other advice to
give Geneva than submission.[8] This
was unspeakably disappointing, but worse was behind. The great Emperor Charles V. came
forward and announced that he cast his sword into the scale of the duke.
The cause of Geneva, already desperate, was now hopeless apparently. Could this little
town of only 12,000 inhabitants resist the Empire? Could the Genevans stand alone against
the world? All help has failed them on earth; nevertheless, their resolution is as
inflexible as ever. Geneva shall be a sanctuary of the Protestant faith and a citadel of
liberty, or its sons will "set fire to its four corners," and make it their own
funeral pile.
It was now that a terrible resolution was taken by its heroic citizens. Outside the walls
of Geneva were four large suburbs, with a population of 6,200 souls.[9] In fact, there were two cities,
one within and another without the walls, and the latter, it was obvious, would afford
cover to the advancing foe, and prevent the free play upon him of the cannon on the
ramparts. On the 23rd of August, 1534, the Council of Two Hundred resolved to demolish
these suburbs, and clear the ground all round the city.[10] This was to sacrifice one half of Geneva to save the other half.
The stern decree was carried out, although not without many heavy sighs and bitter tears.
Rich and poor pulled down their homes with their own hands; although many of the latter
knew not where they were to lay their heads at night. Villa and hovel shared an equal
fate; convents and temples of a venerable antiquity were razed to the ground. The
monastery of St. Victor, of which Bonnivard was prior, and which was the oldest edifice in
Geneva, having been founded in the beginning of the sixth century, fell by the same
sentence, and mingled its ruins with those of fabrics that were but of yesterday. The
pleasant gardens, the sparkling fountains, and the overshadowing trees which had graced so
many of the dwellings were all swept away. By the middle of January, 1535, the work of
demolition was finished; and now a silent and devastated zone begirt the city.[11]
It was not enough to pull down, the citizens had to build up. The stones of the
overturned edifices were taken to repair and strengthen the fortifications. Amid the
drifts of winter the men might be seen building on the walls, and the women carrying earth
and stones. The bells of the demolished churches and convents were melted and cast into
cannon.
Though the idols were pulled down, the Roman Catholics were protected in their worship.[12] The Genevans would not stain the
glory of the prodigious sacrifices they were making for their own religious liberty by
invading that of others. A little band of armed Protestants kept watch at the church door
while the few canons who remained in the city sang their matins on Christmas morning.[13]All was now ready, and the heroic inhabitants, their eyes
lifted up to heaven, awaited the hour when the foe should gather round them on all sides,
and deliver his assault. Let him strike. Their resolution was immovable. Geneva must be
the temple that would enshrine their religion and their liberties, or the mausoleum that
would contain their ashes.
CHAPTER 8 Back to Top
ROME FALLS AND GENEVA RISES.
New Foothold for Protestantism – Conditions Necessary in it – Friburg and Bern
Abandon Geneva – Resolution of the Citizens – The Bishop Removes his Court
– Geneva assumes its own Government – Castle of Peney – Atrocities –
Attempt to Poison the Protestant Ministers – Conversion of the Franciscan Monks
– Public Disputation – Miracles – Discoveries – Bodies of St. Nazaire
etc. – Relics – Souls from Purgatory.
MUCH, we may say everything, depended on the battle now
raging around the little town on the shores of the Leman Lake. Unless Geneva were won to
Protestantism, the victories already gained by the Reformation would be but of small
account; many of them would melt away and be lost. In Germany the spiritual principle of
the Reformation was becoming overshadowed by the political. The princes, with their
swords, were putting themselves in the van; and the Reformers, with the Bible, were
falling into the rear. This was to reverse the right order. It was clear that the German
Reformation had passed its prime. It was necessary to seek a new foothold for
Protestantism – some spot where the SPIRITUAL, planted anew, might unfold itself,
segregated from the political; and where, unfettered and unaided by the temporal power, it
would, in virtue of its own heavenly might, continue to wax in stature and spreading wide
its boughs cover the nations with its grateful shadow, and solace them with its precious
fruits. It was not necessary to select, as its seat, a great empire or a renowned capital;
a little town such as this at the foot of the Alps would serve the purpose better than a
more conspicuous and more expansive stage. The territory selected must be separated from
the other countries of Christendom, Popish and Reformed, and yet it must be near to them;
and not near only, but in the midst of them. Moreover, it must in some way be protected
from external violence while working out its great problem. If around it there rises no
massy bulwark frowning defiance on the foe; if there musters at its gates no powerful army
to do battle with the invader; if the great mountains are too remote to serve as walls and
ramparts to it; if earthly defense it has none, all the more evident will it be that it
owes its safety to an Invisible Arm that is stretched out in its behalf, and that it is
environed by ramparts which the foe is unable to see, and equally unable to scale.
Here will stand the true "Threshold of the Apostles." The doors of this shrine
will open to the holy only; it will be visited by enlightened and believing hearts from
every land; and its highways will be trodden and its portals thronged, not by dissolute
and superstitious crowds, but by the confessors and exiles of Christ. Here Christianity,
laid in its grave at Rome a thousand years before, with crowned Pontiffs and lordly
hierarchs keeping watch around its corpse, shall have its resurrection. Rising from the
tomb to die no more, it will attest, by the order, the liberty, the intelligence, and the
virtue with which it will glorify its seat, that it has lost none of its power during its
long entombment, but that, on the contrary, it returns with invigorated force for the
execution of its glorious mission, which is that of making all things new. Will such a
spot be found in Geneva? Shall the bishop and the duke be chased from it, that it may be
given to the men in whom are found the embodiment of the highest ideal, intellectual and
spiritual, of Protestantism? This is the question which is to receive its answer from the
conflict now waging on the shores of the Leman. The issue of that conflict is at hand.
We left Geneva reduced to the last extremity. Roman Catholic Friburg had terminated its
alliance with the Lutheran town, after a friendship of eight years. The reflection of
Scultetus on the dissolution of the treaty between the two States is striking and
suggestive. "The love of liberty," says he, "had united the two towns in
the closest bonds; but liberty opened the door for religion, and its influence separated
chief friends! But what is most remarkable is, that the alliance lasted so long as the
independence of Geneva required it, and ceased when its dissolution helped to promote the
Reformation.
While its allies are drawing off from the little town on the one side, its enemies are
approaching it on the other. Every day they are redoubling their efforts to take it, and
it would seem as if, left to fight its great battle alone, its fall were inevitable.
The duke is raising army after army to force an entrance into it. The bishop is fighting
against it with both spiritual and temporal arms. Pierre de la Baume had fulminated the
greater excommunication against it, and published it in all the churches and convents of
the neighboring provinces.[1]
The Pope had added his heavier anathema; and now, in the eyes of the inhabitants of
the towns and villages around, Geneva was a "dwelling of devils," and all were
ready to assail, burn, or lay waste a place which the bishop and the Pontiff had cursed.
To crown the misfortunes of the Genevans, the emperor, unsheathing his great sword and
holding it over their heads, demanded that they should open their gates and receive back
their bishop. What was to be done? Shall they crouch down under the old yoke? They had
obtained a glimpse of a new world, and their former slavery appeared more horrible than
ever. To go back to it was the most dreadful issue which their imaginations could picture.
Come victory and life, or come defeat and death, they could not go back; they must and
would advance with firm step in the path on which they had entered.
The same cause which had repelled the Popish Friburg from Geneva, as narrated above, will
draw the Protestant Bern closer to its side; so one would think. Yet no! the threatening
attitude of the Popish powers, and its own complications, made Bern shy of giving open aid
to Geneva in its fight for liberty and the Reformed faith.[2] Some Bernese ambassadors, won by the gracious manners of the duke,
and forgetting in the lighter matters of courtesy the greater matters of liberty, went to
Geneva, and counselled the citizens to send away their preachers, and take back their
bishop.
Astounded at. such a proposal from the men of Bern, the Council of Geneva replied,
"You ask us to abandon our liberties and the Gospel of Jesus Christ." At its
sorest need the little State was forsaken of every earthly aid. But this only serves to
show how rapidly the tide of devotion to the Reformed faith was rising within its walls.
It was its religion that saved it. But for it, Geneva never would have won its liberty.
"We are resolved," said the Council to the Bernese ambassadors, "to
sacrifice our property, our honors, our very children, and our own lives for the Word of
God. Tell the duke we will rather with our own hands set fire to the four corners of our
city, than part with the Gospel."
Meanwhile, the number of the Reformed within the city was daily increasing, partly from
conversions from Popery, and partly from the numerous disciples chased from France by the
storms of persecution, and now daily arriving at the gates of Geneva. On the other hand,
those Romanists who disliked or feared to dwell in a place cursed by the Church, and
hourly sinking deeper in the gulf of heresy, quitted Geneva in considerable numbers. Thus
the proportion between the two parties was growing every day more unequal, and the quiet
of the city more assured.
The bishop, moreover, by way of visiting the Protestants with a special mark of his
displeasure, did them a signal favor. He removed his episcopal council and his judicial
court from Geneva to Gex, in the dominions of the Duke of Savoy.[3] Thereupon the Council of Geneva met and resolved, "That, as
the bishop had abandoned the city to unite himself with its most deadly foe, and had
undertaken divers enterprises against it, even to the length of levying war, they could no
longer regard him as the pastor of the people." They declared the see vacant.[4] Before taking this step,
however, they invited the canons to elect a new bishop; this the canons declined to do.
They next lodged an appeal at Rome; but the Pope gave them no answer. This observance of
forms greatly strengthened the legal position of the Council. The Vatican would not
interfere, the canons would neither elect a new bishop nor bring back the old one; the
city was without a ruler, and the Council was by no means sorry to step into the vacant
office. To the last the Council followed rather than preceded the people and the preachers
The political situation, so full of dangers, made it imperative that they should weigh
every step, and especially that they should be satisfied that the Reformation had
established itself in the hearts of the people before establishing it by edict.
If the number of malcontents who were leaving the city lessened the difficulties within
the walls, it greatly increased the dangers without. The Castle of Peney, on the
precipitous banks of the Rhone, about two leagues from Geneva, belonged to the bishop. It
was a strong and roomy place, and now it swarmed with men breathing vengeance against the
city they had left. From this nest of brigands there issued every day ferocious bands, who
laid waste the country around Geneva, cut off the supplies coming to its markets, waylaid
its citizens, and, carrying them to their stronghold, tortured them in its dungeons, and
then beheaded or otherwise dispatched them. A former Knight of Malta, Peter Goudet, a
Frenchman, who, having embraced Protestantism, had found refuge in Geneva, was entrapped
by these bandits, carried to their den, and, after a mock trial, burned alive.[5] Nor were these ruffians alone in
their barbarities and cruelties. The gentry of Savoy and of the Pays de Vaud, following
their worshipful example, armed their retainers, and, scouring the country around, showed
that they equalled in zeal, by equalling in atrocity, the free-booters of Peney.[6]
A yet darker crime stains the attempt to uphold the Roman Catholic cause in Geneva.
The sword of the duke had failed: so had the excommunication of the bishop, although
backed by that of the Pope. Other means must be thought of. A plot was laid to cut off
Farel, Viret, and Froment, all three at once, by poison. The circumstance that they lodged
together in the same house, that of Claude Bernard, an intelligent and zealous friend of
the Gospel, favored the design. A woman, a native of Bresse, was suborned to leave Lyons,
on pretense of religion, and come to Geneva. She entered the service of Bernard, with whom
the preachers lived. She began, it is said, by poisoning her mistress. A few days
thereafter she mixed poison with the soup which had been prepared for the ministers'
dinner. Happily only one of them partook of the broth. Farel was indisposed, and did not
dine that day, Froment made his repast on some other dish, and Viret alone ate of the
poisoned food. He was immediately seized with illness, and was at the point of death. He
recovered, but the debilitating effects of the poison remained with him to the end of his
days. The wretched woman confessed the crime, but accused a canon and a priest of having
instigated her to it. The two ecclesiastics were permitted to clear themselves by oath,
but the woman was condemned to death on the 14th April, and executed.[7]
This wickedness, which was meant to extinguish the movement, was closely connected
with its final triumph. To guard against any second attempt at poison, the three preachers
had apartments assigned them by the Council in the Franciscan Convent de Rive. The result
of the Reformers being lodged there was the conversion of nearly all the brethren of the
convent, and in particular of James Bernard, a citizen of good family, and brother of
Claude mentioned above. The latter had been one of the more ardent champions of Popery in
Geneva, and, as his change of mind was now complete, he thought it would be well, at this
crisis, to hold a public disputation on religion, similar to those which had taken place
elsewhere with such good results. His design was approved by the Reformers to whom he had
communicated it. It was further sanctioned by the Council.
Accordingly Bernard offered to maintain the following propositions against all who chose
publicly to impugn them:[8] –
It was the foundations of the two faiths that were to be
publicly put on their trial.
The Town Council made the arrangements for the discussion. They had the theses printed and
published. Copies of them were affixed to the doors of the churches of the city, and of
all the churches of the neighborhood. They were, moreover, posted up in the towns of Savoy
that were under the jurisdiction of Bern, and messengers were dispatched to placard them
in the distant cities of Grenoble and Lyons. Men of learning, generally, whether lay or
clerical, were invited; all were assured of safety of person and liberty of speech; eight
members of Council were appointed to preside; and four secretaries were to take down all
that was said on both sides.
The disputation opened on the 30th of May in the grand hall of the Convent de Rive. It
continued four weeks without intermission, and ended on the 24th of June. Bernard himself
took the lead, assisted by Farel and Viret. The two opposing champions were Peter Careli,
a doctor of the Sorbonne, and John Chapuis, a Dominican of Geneva. These days of combat
were days of joy to the friends of the Gospel. Each day some old idol was dethroned. The
ancient cloud was lifting, and as fold after fold of the murky vapor rolled away, Truth
came forth in her splendor, and showed herself to eyes from which she had long been
hidden.
In the end, both Caroli and Chapuis acknowledged themselves
vanquished, and declared, in presence of the vast assembly, their conversion to the
Reformed faith.[11]
The verdict of the public on the disputation was not doubtful, but Farel and some
of the leading citizens wished the Council also to pronounce its judgment;. Three of its
four members were now on the Protestant side; nevertheless, it would give no decision. Its
policy, for the present, was to curb rather than encourage the popular zeal. It visited
with frowns and sometimes with fines the demolition of the images. When asked to give the
Magdalen and St. Peter's for the use of the preachers, whose congregations daily
increased, its reply was, "Not yet." The Council had not lost sight of the duke
and the emperor in the distance, and they knew that the duke and the emperor had not lost
sight of them. Meanwhile, to speed on the movement, there came some startling revelations
of the frauds by which the falling superstition had been upheld.
It is a doctrine of the Church of Rome that infants dying unbaptised are consigned to
limbo, a sort of faubourg of hell. To redeem such wretched babes from so dreary an abode,
what would not their unhappy mothers be willing to give! But was such a thing possible?
Outside the gates stood the Church of Our Lady of Grace. To this Virgin was ascribed,
among other marvellous prerogatives, the power of resuscitating infants for so long as
would suffice for their receiving the Sacrament. The corpse was brought to the statue of
Our Lady, and being laid at its feet, its head would be seen to:move, or a feather placed
on its mouth would be blown away. On this the monks, to whom an offering had previously
been made, would shout out, "A miracle! a miracle!" and ring the great bell of
the church, and salt, chrism, and holy water would instantly be brought and the child
baptised. The Council ordered an investigation into the miracle, and the verdict returned
was the plain one, that it was "a trick of the priests."[12] The syndics forbade all such
miracles in time to come.
There came yet another edifying discovery. It was an immemorial belief at Geneva that the
bodies of St. Nazaire, St. Celsus, and St. Pantaleon reposed beneath the high altar of St.
Gervais. Indeed, the fact could not be doubted, for had not the worthy saints been heard
singing and talking together on Christmas Eve and similar occasions? But in an evil hour
for this belief the altar was overturned, and the too curious eyes of Protestants peered
beneath its foundation-stones. They found not Nazaire and his two venerable companions;
they saw, instead, a curious mechanism in the rock, not unlike the pipes of an organ, with
several vessels of water, so placed that their contents could be forced through the narrow
tubes, making a hollow sound, not unlike the voices of men singing or conversing in the
bowels of the earth. The Genevans were hardly in circumstances to make merry;
nevertheless, the idea that the saints should amuse themselves below ground by playing
upon musical glasses seemed so very odd, that it raised a laugh among the citizens, in
which, however, the monks did not join.[13]
This little town on the shores of the Leman had the distinction of possessing the
brain of St. Peter, which lay usually upon the high altar. It was examined and pronounced
to be a piece of pumice-stone. Again the monks looked grave, while smiles mantled every
face around them. The spiritual treasury of the little town was further enriched with the
arm of St. Anthony. The living arm had done valorous deeds, but the dead arm seemed to
possess even greater power; but, alas! for the relic and for those who had kissed and
worshipped it, and especially those who had profired so largely by the homage paid it, it
was found, when taken from its shrine, to be not a human arm at all, but part of a stag.
Again there were curling lips and mocking eyes.[14] Nor did this exhaust the list of discoveries.
Curious little creatures, with livid points of fire glowing on their bodies, would be seen
moving about, at "dewy eve," in the churchyards or in the cathedral aisles. What
could they be? These, said the priests, are souls from purgatory. They have been permitted
to revisit "the pale glimpses of the moon" to excite in their behalf the
compassion of the living. Hasten with your alms, that your mothers, fathers, husbands may
not have to return to the torments from which they have just made their escape. The
appearance of these mysterious creatures was the unfailing signal of another golden shower
which was about to descend on the priests. But, said the Genevans, before bestowing more
masses, let us look a little more closely at these visitors. We never saw anything that
more nearly resembled crabs with candles attached to them than these souls from purgatory.
Ah, yes! the purgatory from which they have come, we shrewdly suspect, is not the blazing
furnace below the earth, but the cool lake beside the city; we shall restore them to their
former abode, said they, casting them into the water. There came no more souls with
flambeaux to solicit the charity of the Genevans.[15]
CHAPTER 9 Back to Top
ESTABLISHMENT OF PROTESTANTISM IN GENEVA.
Symbol of St. Francis – Monstrous Figure in the Dominican Convent – Mass
Forbidden by the Council – Interview of Syndics with the Canons, etc. – Edict of
the Reformation – Wrath of the Duke of Savoy – Blockades Geneva – Friburg
Breaks its Treaty with Geneva – Bern also Forsakes it – The City nearly Taken
– Successful Sorties of the Besieged – Bern comes to the Help of the Genevans
– The Savoyard Army Retreats – The Duke Deprived of his Kingdom by Francis I.
– Geneva Completes its Reformation – Farel and the Council – Sermons –
Social Regulations – School – Oath of the Citizens – City Motto –
Tablet of Brass – Greatness of the Victory.
THERE came discoveries of another kind to crown with
confusion the falling system. In the Convent of the Cordeliers de la Rive a tablet was
discovered on which St., Francis of Assisi, the patriarch of the order, was represented
under the figure of a great vine, with numerous boughs running out from it in the form of
Cordeliers, and having underneath the inscription, "John 15:1: I am the vine, ye are
the branches."[1] This
showed a faculty for exegesis of a very extraordinary kind. The schoolmen might have
relished it as ingenious: the Genevans, who had begun to love the simplicity of the
Scriptures, condemned it as blasphemous.
It was not a little curious that at that same hour, when the Papacy was tottering to its
fall in Geneva, another tablet, also highly suggestive, should have been drawn from the
darkness in the Convent of the Dominicans. It represented a monster, with seven heads and
ten horns, in the act of being delivered of a horrible brood of Popes, cardinals, and
monks, which were being dropped into a huge cauldron, round which flames circled and
devils danced. Underneath was a prophecy in Latin rhyme, to the effect that the hour was
approaching when God would destroy the power and glory of Rome and cause its name to
perish. The picture was in all likelihood made by Jacques Jaqueri, of the city of Turin,
in the year 1401. He is supposed to have been a Waldensian, who probably had had to do
penance in the Inquisition for this exercise of his art, and hence the fact that the
picture was found in one of the convents of the Dominicans, the order to which, as is well
known, this department of the Church's work had been assigned.[2]
The hour was now fully come. The enormities of the Genevan priesthood had first
awakened indignation against the Papacy; subsequent revelations of the cheats to which the
system had stooped to uphold itself, had intensified that indignation; but it was the
preaching of Farel and his companions that planted the Reformation – that is,
converted the movement from one of destruction to one of restitution. On the 10th of
August, 1535, the Council of Two Hundred assembled to take into consideration the matter
of religion. Farel, Viret, and many of the citizens appeared
before it. With characteristic eloquence Farel addressed the Council, urging it no longer
to delay, but to proclaim as the religion of Geneva that same system of truth which so
great a majority of the Genevans already professed. He offered, for himself and his
colleagues, to submit to death, provided the priests could show that in the public
disputation, or in their sermons, he and his brethren had advanced anything contrary to
the Word of God.[3]
After long discussion the Council saw fit to lay its commands on both parties. The
Protestants were forbidden to destroy any more images, and were considered as bound to
restore those they had already displaced, whenever the priests should prove from Holy
Scripture that images were worthy objects of religious veneration. The Roman Catholics, on
their part, were enjoined to cease from the celebration of mass until the Council should
otherwise ordain. So stood the matter on the 10th of August. The step was a small one, but
the gain remained with the Reformation.
Two days after, the Council summoned before them the Cordeliers, the Dominicans, and the
Augustines, and having read to them a summary of the disputation held in the city a few
days previously, they asked them what they had to say to it. They answered, one after the
other, that they had nothing to object. The Council next offered that, provided they made
good the truth of their dogmas and the lawfulness of their worship from the Word of God,
their Church should be re-established in its former glory. They declined the challenge,
and submitted themselves to the Council, praying to be permitted to live as their
ancestors in times past had lived.[4]
The same day after dinner three syndics and two councillors, by appointment of the
Senate, waited on the grand-vicar of the bishop, the canons, and the parochial cures.
Briefly recounting the religious conflicts which had disturbed the city these ten years
past, they made the same offer to them which they had made to the monks in the morning.
But the prospect of rendering Romanism once more supreme in Geneva, could not tempt them
to do battle for their faith; they had no desire, they said, to hear any more sermons from
Farel; nor, indeed, could they dispute on religions matters without leave from their
bishop. They craved only to be permitted to exercise their religion without restraint. The
deputation announced to them the order of Council that they should cease to say mass, and
then retired.[5]
From that day mass ceased to be said in the churches and convents, and on the 27th
of August a general edict was issued, enjoining public worship to be conducted according
to the rules of the Gospel, and prohibiting all "acts of Popish idolatry." From
that day forward Farel and his two colleagues preached, dispensed the Sacraments of
Baptism and the Lord's Supper, celebrated marriages, and performed all other religious
acts freely.[6] The
monastery of La Rive was converted into a public school, and the convent of St. Claire
into an hospital. The goods of the Church, and of the religious houses, due provision
having been made for existing incumbents, were applied to the maintenance of the
Protestant clergy, of schools, and of the poor.[7]
The priests, monks, and nuns were very courteously treated. It was entirely in
their own choice to remain within the city or to leave it. The nuns of St. Claire, whom
Sister Jussie's narrative has made famous, chose to withdraw to Anneci. They had been
haunted by the terrible idea of being compelled to marry, and thought it better to
"flee temptation" than remain in Geneva. Some of the sisters had not been
outside the walls of their convent for thirty years. To them, every sight and sound of the
country was strange; and it is impossible to withhold a smile in perusing Ruchat's account
of their journey, and thinking of the terrors into which the good sisters were thrown at
the sight of the sheep and oxen in the fields, which they mistook for lions and bears.[8]
From the 27th of August, 1535, the Popish faith ceased to be the religion of
Geneva. But the victory, though great, did not terminate the war, or justify the Genevans
in thinking that they had placed their liberties on an impregnable basis. On the contrary,
never, apparently, had they been in greater danger than now, for the step of proclaiming
themselves Protestant had filled up their cup in the eyes of their enemies. The duke,
roused to fury by this daring affront on the part of a city that had scarcely a soldier to
defend it, and that was without an ally in Europe, resolved to make this handful of
burghers repent of their madness. He would concentrate all his power in one terrible blow,
and crush a heresy that was so full of insolence and rebellion in the ruins of the city in
which it had found a seat. He blockaded Geneva on the land side by his army, and on the
side of the lake by his galleys. The gates that would not open to his soldiers must open
to famine, and he would see how long these haughty burghers would hold fast their heresy
and rebellion when they had not bread to eat. And, in sooth, the prospects of the little
city seemed desperate. The blockade was so strict that it was hardly possible to bring in
any provisions, and no one could go or come but at the risk of being waylaid and killed.
The bare and blackened zone outside the city walls, so recently a rich girdle of stately
villa and flourishing garden, was but too exact an emblem of its political nakedness, now
entirely without allies. Even Bern, in this, the hour of Geneva's sorest need, stood afar
off. Every day the stock of provisions in the beleaguered city was growing less. The
citizens could count the hours when gaunt famine would sit at every board, and one by one
they would drop and die. Well, so be it! They would leave the duke to vanquish Geneva
when, from a city of patriots, it had become a city of corpses. This was the illustrious
triumph they would prepare for him. Their resolve was as unalterable as ever. Be it a
nation or be it an individual, every truly great and noble career must have its
commencement in an act of self-sacrifice. It was out of this dark night that the glorious
day of Geneva sprang.
The Genevans found a messenger expert enough to escape detection and carry tidings to
Bern. The powerful Bern, at ease as regarded its own safety, listened in philosophic
calmness to the tale of Geneva's perils,[9] but after some days it thought right to interfere so far in behalf
of its former companion in the battles of liberty and religion as to open negotiations
with the duke. The duke was willing to receive any number of protocols, provided only the
Bernese did not send soldiers. While their Lordships of Bern were negotiating, famine and
the duke were steadily advancing upon the doomed city. But now it happened that the
Bernese were themselves touched, and their eyes opened somewhat roughly to the duke's
treachery and the folly of longer indulging in the pastime of negotiation. The Lord of
Savoy had taken the Chatelain of Muss, a titled freebooter, into his service. The
Chatelain, with his band of desperadoes, made an irruption into the districts of Orbe,
Grandson, and Echelous, which were the common property of Bern and Friburg, and spoiled
them in the duke's name. Bern hesitated no longer. She declared war against the Duke of
Savoy, thinking it better to fight him at Geneva than wait till he had come nearer to her
own gates.[10]
Having at length resolved to act, Bern, it must be confessed, did so with vigor. On
the 13th of January, 1536, the Council came to the resolution of declaring war. The
following day they sent notice of their determination to the Swiss cantons, praying them
to unite their arms with theirs in what, beyond question, was the common cause of the
Confederacy, the repulsion of a foreign tyranny. On the 16th they issued their
proclamation of war; on the 22nd their army of 6,000 began their march. They gave its
command to Jean Franqois Naeguli, who had served with honor in the wars in Italy. On the
2nd of February the Bernese army arrived at the gates of Geneva.[11] The joy their appearance caused and the welcome accorded them may
be easily imagined.
Meanwhile the dangers within and outside Geneva had thickened. Despite the necessities of
the citizens, certain rich men kept their granaries closed. This led to disorders. On the
14th of January the Council assumed possession of these stores, and opened them to the
public, at the same time fixing the price at which the corn was to be sold, and so too did
they as regarded the wine and other necessaries. The dangers outside were not so much in
the control of the Council.
The Savoyard army had resolved to attempt scaling the walls, the same night, at three
points. The assault was made between nine and ten. One party advanced on the side of St.
Gervais, where the city was defended only by a palisade and ditch; the others made their
attempt on that of the Rive and St. Victor. The latter, having crossed the ditch, were now
at the foot of the wall with their ladders, but the Genevans, appearing on the top,
courageously repelled them, and forced them to retire. On the 16th of January came the
good news, by two heralds, that Bern had declared war in their behalf, this re-animated
the Genevans; though weakened by famine they made four sorties on the besiegers. In one of
these, 300 Genevans engaged double that number of Savoyards. The duke's soldiers were
beaten. First the duke's cavalry gallopped off the field, then the infantry lost courage
and fled. Of the Savoyards 120 were slain and four taken prisoners. The Genevans did not
lose a man; one of their number only was hurt by the falling of his horse, which was
killed under him.[12]
This was only the beginning of disasters to the duke's army. A few days thereafter,
the Bernese warriors, who had continued their march, despite that the five Popish Cantons
had by deputy commanded them to stop, appeared before Geneva. They rested not more than a
single day, when they set out in search of the enemy. The Savoyard army was already in
full retreat upon Chambery. The Bernese pushed on, but the foe fled faster than they could
pursue. And now came tidings that convinced the men of Bern that the farther prosecution
of the expedition was needless. Enemies had started up on every side of the duke, and a
whole Iliad of woes suddenly overtook him. Among others, the King of France chose this
moment to declare war against him. Francis I. had many grudges to satisfy, but what mainly
moved him at this time against the duke was his desire to have a road to Milan and Italy.
Accordingly, he moved his army into Savoy, wrested from the duke Chambery, the cradle of
his house, chased him across the Alps, and, not permitting him to rest even at Turin, took
possession of his capital. Thinking to seize the little territory of Geneva, the duke had
lost his kingdoms of Savoy and Piedmont. he retired to Vercelli, where, after seventeen
years of humiliation and exile, he died.[13] How many tragedies are wrapped up in the great tragedy of the
sixteenth century!
The duke off the scene, the movement at Geneva now resumed its march. The edict of the
27th August, 1535, which had dropped somewhat out of sight amid sieges and battles, and
the turmoil of war, came again to the front. That edict proclaimed Protestantism as the
religion of Geneva. But Farel did not deceive himself with the fiction that the decree
which proclaimed Geneva Protestant had really made it so. The seat of religion, he well
knew, is the hearts and understandings of a people, not the edicts of a statute-book; and
the great task of making the people really Protestant was yet to be done. There were in
Geneva a goodly number who loved the Gospel for its own sake, and it was the strength of
these men which had carried them through in their great struggle; but the crown had yet to
be put upon the work by making the lives, as well as the profession, of the people
Protestant.
This great labor was undertaken jointly by Farel and by the Council. The temporal and
spiritual powers, yoked together, drew lovingly the car of the Reform, and both having one
aim – the highest well-being of the people– neither raised those questions of
jurisdiction, or felt those rivalries and jealousies, which subsequent times so
plentifully produced. There is a time to set landmarks, and there is a time to remove
them.
Farel, occupying the pulpit, sent forth those expositions of the Reformed doctrine which
were fitted to instruct the understandings and guide the consciences of the Genevans:
while the Council in the Senate-house framed those laws which were intended to restrain
the excesses and disorders into which the energetic and headstrong natures of the citizens
were apt to impel them. This, all will admit, was a tolerably fair division of the labor.
Farel's teaching laid a moral basis for the Council, and the Council's authority
strengthened Farel, and opened the way for his teachings to reach their moral and
spiritual ends. A close examination of the matter, especially under the lights of modern
science, may, it is true, result in disclosing instances in which the Council did the work
of Farel, and Farel did the work of the Council; but we ought to bear in mind that modern
society was then in its infancy; that toleration was only in its dawn; and that
punctiliousness would have marred the work, and left Geneva a chaos.
Not only was the standard of Protestantism displayed in the August preceding again raised
aloft, but the moral and social regulations which had accompanied it, in order to render
it a life as well as a creed, were brought into the foreground. There never was a class of
men who showed themselves more anxious to join a moral with a doctrinal Reformation than
the Reformers of the sixteenth century. The separation which at times has been seen
between the two is the error of a later age. Re-entering this path, the first labor of the
Council and Farel was to establish a perfect concord and unity among the citizens. Of
those even who were with the Reform, and had fought side by side against the duke, there
were two parties – the zealous and the lukewarm. Hates and mutual reproaches divided
them. On the 6th of February, 1536, the Council-General – that is, the whole body of
the citizens – assembled, and passed an edict, promising by oath to forget all past
injuries, to cease from mutual recriminations, to live henceforward in good brotherhood,
and submit themselves to the Syndics and Council.[14]
Next came the matter of public worship, The number, place, and time of the sermons
were fixed. Four ministers and two deacons were selected to preach on the appointed days.
Moderate stipends were assigned them from the ecclesiastical property. The Sunday was to
be religiously observed, and all the shops strictly closed. On that day, besides the other
services, there was to be sermon at four in the morning, for the convenience of servants.
The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was to be dispensed four times in the year. Baptisms
were to take place only in the church at the hours of public worship. Marriage might be
celebrated any day, but the ceremony must be in public, and after three several
notifications of it.[15]
Last of all came the rules for the reformation of manners. Since the beginning of
the century Geneva had been, in fact, a camp, and its manners had become more than rough.
It was necessary, in the interests of morality, and of liberty not less, to put a curb
upon the wild license of former days. They had banished the duke, they must banish the old
Geneva. The magistrates forbade games of chance, oaths and blasphemies, dances and
lascivious songs, and the farces and masquerades in which the people had been wont to
indulge. They enjoined all persons to attend the sermons, and other exercises of religion,
and to retire to their homes at nine o'clock at night. They specially commanded the
masters of hotels and cabarets to see that their guests observed these regulations. That
no one might plead ignorance, these rules were frequently proclaimed by sound of trumpet.
The education of the youth of the State was an object of special care to the magistrates,
who desired that they should be early grounded in the principles of virtue and piety, as
well as in a knowledge of the classical tongues, and the belles lettres. For this end they
erected a school or academy, with competent professors, to whom they gave suitable
salaries. There was a school in Geneva in Popish times, but it was so badly managed that
it accomplished nothing for the interests of education. The Council-General, by a decree
of May 21st, 1536, established a new seminary in the convent of the Cordeliers on the
Rive, and appointed as headmaster Antony Saunier, the countryman and friend of Farel. The
latter sought, in divers places, for learned men willing to be teachers in this school.[16]
On the same 21st of May there was witnessed a solemn sight at Geneva. The whole
body of the citizens, the magistrates and ministers at their head, assembled in the
Cathedral of St. Peter, and with uplifted hands swore to renounce the doctrine of the
Roman Church, the mass and all that depends upon it, and to live according to the laws of
the Gospel. This national vow included the regulations we have just enumerated, which were
regarded as necessary deductions from the great Christian law. Soon after this Farel
composed, in conjunction with Calvin, who by this time had joined him, a brief and simple
Confession of Faith, in twenty-one articles,[17] which was sworn to by all the citizens of the State, who appeared
before the Council in relays of tens, and had the oath administered to them. This was in
the November following.[18]
To mark the laying of the foundations of their Protestant State, and the new age
therewith introduced, the Genevans struck a new coin and adopted a new motto for their
city. In the times of paganism, being worshippers of the sun, they had taken that luminary
as their symbol. Latterly, retaining the radical idea in their symbol, they had modified
and enlarged it into the following motto: Post tenebras spero lucem – i.e.,
"After the darkness I hope for the light:" words which look like an unconscious
prophecy of a time of knowledge and truth in the future. Having established their
Reformation, the Genevans changed their motto once more. Post tenebras lucem –
"After darkness, light" – was the device stamped on the new money of the
State, as if to intimate that the light they looked for was now come.[19]
Finally, as an enduring monument of this great event, the citizens placed a tablet
of brass in front of the Town-house, with the following inscription engraven on it: –
Never did more modest tablet record greater victory. That
victory was too great, in truth, to be represented by any monument of marble. No pomp of
words, no magnificence of art, could express its value. Protestantism, now planted on this
spot, which the struggles, the blood, and the prayers of believing men had won for it in
the midst of Christendom, rising aloft in its own majesty, and shining by its own
splendor, must be its own monument; or, if other memorial it is to have, it must be just
such simple record of accomplished facts as this tablet contains.
But, in truth, when the Genevans placed their memorial-stone in the front of their
Senate-house, they did not know half the worth of the victory they had won. No man, at
that day, could even guess at the many brilliant triumphs which lay folded up in this one
triumph. It required a century to evolve them. What is it that the men of Geneva have
done, according to their own account? They have rescued a little city from tyranny and
superstition, and consecrated it to liberty and pure Christianity. This does not seem
much. Had it been a great throne, or a powerful realm, it would have been something; but a
third-rate town, with only a few leagues of territory, what is that? Besides, Geneva may
be lost to-morrow. May not Spain and France come in any hour and extinguish its liberties?
They believe they may, and they make the attempt, but only to find that while their armies
are melting away, and their empires dissolving, the sway of the little Protestant town is
every year widening. Very diminutive is the spot; but the beacon-light does not need a
continent for a pedestal; a little rock will do; and while the winds howl and the billows
shake their angry crests, and roll their thundering surges around its base, its ray still
burns aloft, and streaming far and wide over the waves, pierces the black night, and
guides the bark of the mariner. What was it the ancient sage demanded in order to be able
to move the world? Only a fixed point. Geneva was that fixed point. We shall see it in the
course of time become the material basis of a great moral empire.
CHAPTER 10 Back to Top
CALVIN ENTERS GENEVA — ITS CIVIL AND
ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION.
Calvin at the Gates of Geneva — Farel Told — Meeting of Farel and Calvin —
Is this the Author of the Institutes?—Adjuration — Calvin Remains in Geneva
— Commences as Lecturer in the Cathedral — His Confession of Faith —
Excommunication — What is it? — Morality the Corner-stone of the New State
— Civil Constitution of the Republic — The Council-General — The Council of
Two Hundred — The Council of Twenty-five — The Syndics — The Consistory or
Church-Court — Distinction between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers —
Calvin's Ideas on the Relations between Church and State — Guizot's Testimony —
Calvin's Ideal in Advance of his Age.
ONE day, towards the end of August, 1536, a stranger, of
slender figure and pale face, presented himself at the gates of Geneva. There was nothing
to distinguish him from the crowds of exiles who were then arriving almost daily at the
same gates, except it might be the greater brightness that burned in his eye. He had come
to rest only for a night, and depart on the morrow. But as he traversed the streets on his
way to his hotel, a former acquaintance — Du Tillet, say some; Caroli, say others
— recognised him, and instantly hurried off to tell Farel that Calvin was in Geneva.
When, nearly a year ago, we parted with Calvin, he was on his way across the Alps to visit
Renee, the daughter of Louis XII. of France, and wife of Hercules d'Este, Duke of Ferrara.
"He entered Italy," as he himself said, "only to leave it,"[1] though not till he had confirmed
the illustrious princess, at whose court he sojourned, in her attachment to the Protestant
faith, in which, despite the many and peculiar trials to which her constancy exposed her,
she steadfastly continued to her life's end. His eldest brother dying, Calvin recrossed
the mountains, on a hasty journey to his birthplace, most probably to arrange the family
affairs,[2] and
leave Noyon for ever. Where shall he next go?. The remembrance of the studious days he had
passed at Basle returned to him with irresistibly attractive force, and now, accompanied
by his brother Antoine, and his sister Maria,[3] he was on his way to his former retreat; but the direct road
through Lorraine was blocked up by the armies of Charles V., and this compelled him to
make a detour by Switzerland, which brought him to the gates of Geneva.
With startled but thankful surprise Farel received the news that the author of the
Christian Institutes was in the city. God, he thought, had sent, at a critical moment, the
man of all others whom he most wished to associate with himself in the work of reforming
Geneva.
Farel had begun to feel the difficulty of the task he had in hand. To break this people
from their habits of lawless indulgence, nurtured by the contests in which they had won
their liberty, would indeed be no easy matter. They would spurn all attempts to coerce
them, and yield only to the force of a stronger will, and the sway of a loftier genius.
Besides, the highest organising skill was demanded in the man who should set up a moral
tribunal in the midst of this licentious city, and found on this unpromising spot an
empire which should pervade with its regenerating spirit nations afar off, and generations
yet unborn. Believing that he had found in Calvin one who possessed all these great
qualities, Farel was already on his way to visit him.
Farel now stands before the author of the Institutes. He beholds a man of small stature
and sickly mien. Were these the shoulders on which he should lay a burden which would have
tasked the strength of Atlas himself? We can well believe that Farel experienced some
moments of painful misgivings. To reassure himself he had to recall to mind, doubtless,
the profound wisdom, the calm strength, and the sublimity of principle displayed on every
page of the Institutes. That was the real Calvin. Now Farel began to press his suit. He
was here combating alone. He had to do daily battle against an atrocious tyranny outside
the city, and against a licentious Libertinism within it. Come, he said to the young
Reformer, and be my comrade in the campaign.
Calvin's reply was a refusal. His constructive and practical genius was then unknown even
to himself. His sphere, he believed, was his library; his proper instrument of work, his
pen; and to cast himself into a scene like that before him was, he believed, to extinguish
himself. Panting to be at Basle or at Strasburg, where speaking from the sanctuary of a
studious and laborious privacy, he could edify all the Churches, he earnestly besought
Farel to stand aside and let him go on his way.
But Ferel would not stand aside. Putting on something of the authority of an ancient
prophet, he commanded the young traveler to remain and labor in Geneva, and he imprecated
upon his studies the curse of God, should he make them the pretext for declining the call
now addressed to him.[4] It
was the voice not of Farel, but of God, that now spoke to Calvin; so he felt; and
instantly he obeyed. He loved, in after-life, to recall that, "fearful
adjuration," which was, he would say, "as if God from on high had stretched out
his hand to stop me."[5]
Calvin's journey was now at an end. He had reached the spot where his life's work
was to be done. Here, in this grey city, clinging to its narrow rocky site, the calm lake
at its feet, and the glories of the distant mountains in its sky, was he for twenty-eight
years to toil and wage battle, and endure defeat, but to keep marching on through toil and
defeat, to more glorious victory in the end than warrior ever won with his sword, and then
he would fall on sleep, and rest by the banks of that river whose "arrowy"
stream he had crossed but a few minutes before, he gave his hand to Farel, and in doing so
he gave himself to Geneva.
If the destiny of Calvin was from that moment changed; if from a student he became a
legislator and leader; if from being a soldier in the ranks he became generalissimo of the
armies of Protestantism, not less was the destiny of Geneva from that moment changed.
Calvin had already written a book that constituted an epoch in Protestantism, but he was
to write it a second time; though not with pen and ink. He would display before all
Christendom the Institutes, not as a volume of doctrines, but as a system of realised
facts — a State rescued from the charnel-house of corruption, and raised to the
glorious heritage of liberty and virtue — glorious in art, in letters, and in riches,
because resplendent with every Christian virtue. To write Protestantism upon their
banners, to proclaim it in their edicts, to install it as a worship in their Churches,
Calvin and all the Reformers held to be but a small affair; what they strove above all
things to achieve was to plant it as an operative moral force in the hearts of men, and at
the foundations of States.
Calvin was now at the age of twenty-seven. The magistrates of Geneva welcomed him, but
with a cautious reserve, if we may judge from the first mention of his name in the
registers of the city, about a fortnight after his arrival, as "that Frenchman!"
He was appointed to give lectures on the Scriptures, and to preach.[6] Beza styles him "doctor or
professor of sacred letters," but as yet no academy existed, and his prelections were
delivered in the cathedral. As regards the latter function, that of preacher, it was some
time before Calvin would assume it. When at length he appeared in the pulpit as pastor, he
spoke with an eloquence so simple and clear, yet so majestic and luminous, that his
audiences continued daily to grow. He had already done a winter's work, but had received
scarcely any wages, for we read in the Council Registers, under date February 13th, 1537:
"Six gold crowns are given to Cauvin or Calvin, seeing that he has hitherto scarcely
received anything."[7]
It was not long till Calvin's rare genius for system and organisation began to
display itself. Within three months from the commencement of his labors in Geneva, he had,
in conjunction with Farel, compiled a brief but comprehensive creed, setting forth the
leading doctrines of the Christian faith. To this he added a Catechism,[8] not that, in question and
answer, for children, which we now possess, but one adapted to adults. The Genevans, with
uplifted hands, had embraced Protestantism: Calvin would show them what that Protestantism
was which they had professed, and what were the moral duties which it demanded of all its
adherents. The Genevans had lifted up their hands: had they bowed their hearts? This was
the main question with him. He had no trust in blind obedience. Knowledge must be the
corner-stone of the new State, the foundations of which he was now laying.
We can give here only the briefest outline of this Confession of Faith. Placing the Word
of God in the foreground, as the one infallible authority, and the one and sole rule, it
proceeds, in twenty-one articles, to declare what Scripture teaches, touching God, and the
plan of redemption which he has provided for man fallen and helpless. It proclaims Christ
the one channel of all blessing; the Spirit, the one Author of all good works; faith,
"the entrance to all these riches;" and then goes on to speak of the apparatus
set up for offering redemption to men, the Sacraments and ministers. Then follow articles
on the Church, "comprehending the whole body of true believers;" on
excommunication, or the exclusion from the Church of all manifestly unholy and vicious
persons, till they shall have repented; and, in fine, on magistracy, "an ordinance of
God," and to be respected "in all ordinances that do not contravene the
commandments of God." On the 10th of November, 1536, this Confession was received and
approved of by the Council of Two Hundred.[9]
To the half-Protestantised citizens of Geneva the sting of this document was in the
end of it — ex-communication. The other articles had simply to be professed, this one
was heavier than them all, inasmuch as it had to be borne. What did this power import? Was
the Protestant excommunication but the Papal anathema under another name? Far from it. It
carried with it no cruel infliction. It operated in no preternatural or mystic manner,
inflicting blight upon the soul. It did not even pronounce on the state of the man before
God. It simply found that his life was manifestly unholy, and, therefore, that he was
unfit for a holy society, and in token of his exclusion it withheld from him the
Sacraments. No society can exist without laws or rules; but of what use are laws without
an executive or tribunal to administer them? and without the right of inflicting
penalties, a tribunal would be powerless; and a lighter penalty than
"excommunication" or expulsion it would be impossible to conceive or devise.
Without this power the Church in Geneva would have been a city without walls and bulwarks;
it would have been dissolved the moment it was formed.
It is necessary at this stage to refer to the Constitution — civil and ecclesiastical
— of Geneva, in order that the course of affairs may be clearly intelligible. The
fundamental principle of the State was, that the people are the source of power. In
accordance therewith came, first, a Convention of all the citizens, termed the
Council-General.
This was the supreme authority. To obviate the confusion and turbulence incident to so
large an assembly, a Council of Two Hundred was chosen, termed the Great Council.[10] Next came the Little, or
ordinary Council, consisting of twenty-five members, including the four Syndics of the
city.
This last, the Council of Twenty-five, was the executive, and possessed moreover a large
share of the judicial and legislative power. The constitutional machinery we have
described in detail was popularly summed up thus — the PEOPLE, the COUNCIL, and
SENATE of Geneva. The Council-General — that is, the People — was convoked only
once a year, in November, to elect the four Syndics. Besides this annual assembly, it met
on important emergencies, or when fundamental changes were to be determined upon, and then
only. The actual government of the State was mainly in the hands of the Council of
Twenty-five, which was by constitution largely oligarchical. Such was the republic when
Calvin became a member of it.
With Protestantism there arrived a new power in Geneva — the religious, namely —
and we complete our picture of the government of the little State when we describe the
provision made for the exercise of the ecclesiastical authority. The court or tribunal
which took cognisance of Church scandals was the Consistory. The Consistory was composed
of the five ministers of the city and twelve laymen.[11] It met every Thursday, and the highest penalty it had power to
inflict was excommunication, by which is meant expulsion from the Church. If this failed
to reclaim the offender, the Consistory had the right to report the case to the Council,
and require it to proceed therein according to the laws.
In judging of this arrangement time and circumstances are to be taken into account. The
course of affairs at Geneva inevitably tended to graft the ecclesiastical upon the civil
government, and to some extent to build up the two in one. It was Protestantism that had
called Geneva into existence as a free State. Protestantism was its soul, the center and
citadel of its liberties, and whatever tended to weaken or overthrow that principle tended
equally to the ruin of the republic. Encompassed on all sides by powerful enemies, this
one principle was the bond of their union and the shield of their freedom; and this went
far to impart, in many cases, a two-fold character to the same action, and to justify the
Church in regarding certain acts as sins, and visiting them with her censures, while the
State viewed the same acts as crimes, and meted out to them its punishments.
Calvin took the Jewish theocracyas his model when he set to work to frame, or rather to
complete, the General Republic. What we see on the banks of the Leman is a theocracy;
Jehovah was its head, the Bible was its supreme code, and the government exercised a
presiding and paternal guardianship over all interests and causes, civil and spiritual.
Geneva, in this respect, was a reproduction of the Old Testament state of society. We of
the nineteenth century regard this as a grave error. At the same time, it must be
acknowledged that Calvin grasped the essential distinction between things civil and things
ecclesiastical, and the necessity of placing the two under distinct jurisdictions or
powers. But his theocratic views produced a dinmess and confusion in his ideas on that
head, and he was more successful in settling the just limits of the ecclesiastical
authority, than he was in defining those of the civil jurisdiction. He would not allow a
particle of civil power to the Consistory, but he was not equally careful to withhold
ecclesiastical power from the Council. This error arose from his making the Old Testament
a model on a point which, we believe, was temporary and local, not permanent and
universal. Nevertheless, the Reformer of Geneva stood ahead in this great question of all
his predecessors. We may quote here the words of a great statesman, and a countryman of
Calvin's, who has done justice to the Reformer on this point. "A principle,"
says Guizot, "we should rather say a passion, held sway in Calvin's heart, and was
his guiding star in the permanent organisation of the Church which he founded, as well as
in his personal conduct during his life. That principle is the profound distinction
between the civil and the religious community. Distinction, we say, and by no means
separation. Calvin, on the contrary, desired alliance between the two communities and the
two powers, but each to be independent in its own domain, combining their action, showing
mutual respect, and lending mutual support ..... In this principle and this fundamental
labor," continues the historian, "there are two new and bold reforms attempted
in the very heart of the great Reformation of Europe, and over and above the work of its
first promoters." in proof, Guizot goes on to instance England, where the "royal
supremacy" was accepted; Switzerland, where the Council of State held the sovereign
authority in matters of religion; and Germany, where the magistrate was the chief bishop;
and continues: "In this great question as to the relations between Church and State,
Calvin desired and did more, than his predecessors .... in spite of the resistance often
showed him by the civil magistrates, in spite of the concessions he was sometimes obliged
to make to them, he firruly maintained this principle, and he secured to the Reformed
Church of Geneva, in purely religious questions and affairs, the right of self-government,
according to the faith and the law as they stand written in the Holy Books."[12]
In this statement of facts, Guizot is undoubtedly correct. Only we think that he is
mistaken in believing that it was the Church of Rome, and the "independence of its
head," which taught the Reformer the "strength and dignity" conferred on
the Church by having "an existence distinct from the civil community." Calvin
learned the idea from a Diviner source. Nor was he quite so successful in extricating the
spiritual from the civil jurisdiction, either in idea or in reality, as Guizot appears to
think. As regarded the idea, he was embarrassed by the Old Testament theocracy, which he
took to be a Divine model for all times; and as regarded the actuality, the opposition
which he encountered from the civil authority at Geneva made it impossible for hint to
realize his idea so fully as he wished to do. But it is only justice to bear in mind that
his ideal was far in advance of his age, as Guizot has said.
CHAPTER 11 Back to Top
SUMPTUARY LAWS — CALVIN AND FAREL
BANISHED.
Geneva Stands or Falls with its Morality — Code of Morals — Dances, etc. —
The Sumptuary Laws Earlier than Calvin's Time — Rise of the Libertine Party —
Outcries — Demand for the Abolition of the New Code — The Libertines obtain a
Majority in the Council — Bern Interferes adversely — Question of Unleavened
BreadsConfusion and Disorders in Geneva — Calvin and Farel Refuse to Dispense the
Communion at Easter — Tumult in the Churches — Farel and Calvin Banished by the
Council.
CALVIN'S theological code was followed by one of morals.
There were few cities in Christendom that had greater need of such a rule than the Geneva
of that day. For centuries it had known almost nothing of moral discipline. The clergy
were notoriously profligate, the government was tyrannical, and the people, in
consequence, were demoralised. Geneva had but one redeeming trait, the love of liberty.
The institutions of learning were neglected, and the manners of the Genevans were as rude
as their passions were violent. They revelled, they danced, they played at cards, they
fought in the streets, they sung indecent songs, uttered fearful blasphemies; indulged, in
short, in all sorts of excesses. It was clear that Protestantism must cleanse the city or
leave it. Geneva was nothing unless it was moral; it could not stand a day. This was the
task to which Calvin now turned his attention.
This introduces the subject of the sumptuary laws, which were sketched at this time,
though not finished till an after-period. The rules now framed forbade games of chance,
oaths and blasphemies, dances,[1] lascivious
songs, farces, and masquerades. The hours of taverners were shortened; every one was to be
at home by nine at night, and hotel-keepers were to see that these rules were observed by
their guests. To these were added certain regulations with a view of restraining excess in
dress and profusion at meals. All were enjoined to attend sermon and the other religious
exercises.[2]
Even before the time of Calvin, under the Roman Church, most of these practices,
and especially dances, had been forbidden under severe penalties. Forty years after his
death, under Henry IV. of France, similar edicts were promulgated.[3] The British Government at this
day adopts the principle of the Genevan regulations, when it forbids gambling, indecent
pictures and plays, and similar immoralities; and if such laws are justifiable now, how
much more so in Calvin's time, when there were scarcely any amusements that were innocent!
The second battle with the citizens proved a harder one than the first with the priests,
and the reformation of manners a more difficult task than the reformation of beliefs. The
citizens remembered the halcyon days they had enjoyed under their bishop, and contrasted
them with the moral restraints imposed upon them by the Consistory. The reproofs which
Calvin thundered against their vices from the pulpit were intolerable to many, perhaps to
most. The population was a mixed one. Many were still Papists at heart; some were
Anabaptists, and others were deeply tainted with that infidel and materialistic philosophy
which had been growing quietly up under the shade of the Roman Church. The successful
conflict the Genevans had waged for their political independence helped, too, to make them
less willing to bow to the Protestant yoke. Was it not enough that they had shed their
blood to have the Gospel preached to them? It was mortifying to find that very
Protestantism which they had struggled to establish turning round upon them, and weighing
them in its scales, and finding them wanting.
Loud and indignant cries were raised against Calvin for neglecting his office. Appointed
to be an expositor of Scripture, who made him, asked his calumniators, a censor of morals
and a reprover of the citizens?
Religion, in the age gone by, had been too completely dissociated from morality to make
the absurdity of this accusation palpable. The Libertines, as the oppositionists began now
to be called, demanded the abolition of the new code; they complained especially of the
"excommunication." "What!" said they, "have we put down the
Popish confessional only to set up a Protestant one?" and mounting party badges, they
wore green flowers in mockery of the other citizens, calling them "brothers in
Christ."[4] The
Government began to be intimidated by these clamours. The majority of the citizens being
still on the side of the ministers, the Council ventured on issuing an edict, commanding
the Libertines to leave the city.
But it had not the courage to enforce its own order; and the Libertines, seeing its
weakness, grew every day more insolent. At length the elections in February, 1538, gave a
majority in their favor in the Council; three out of the four Syndics were on the side of
the Libertines.[5] This
turn of affairs placed the pastors in a position of extreme difficulty. They stood in
front of a hostile Council, pushed on from behind by a hostile population. Calvin remained
firm. His resolution was taken unalterably to save his principle, come what might to
himself. He was determined at all hazards not to give holy things to unholy men; for he
saw that with that principle must stand or fall the Reformation in Geneva.
While these intestine convulsions shook the city within, invasion threatened it without.
The strifes of the citizens were the signal to their old enemies to renew their attempts
to recover Geneva. The inhabitants fortified the walls, cast the superfluous bells into
cannon, and placed them upon the ramparts.[6] Alas! this would avail but little, seeing they were all the while
pulling down that which was their true defense. With their morality was bound up their
Protestantism, and should it depart, not all their stone walls would prevent their
becoming once more the prey of Rome.
At this stage the matter was still further embroiled by the interference of Bern. The
government of that powerful canton, ambitious of assuming the direction of affairs at
Geneva, counselled the Genevese to restore certain ceremonies which had been retained in
the Bernese Reformation, but cast off in the Genevan one; among others, holidays, and the
use of unleavened bread in the Communion.[7] Calvin and Farel demurred to the course recommended.
The moment the sentiments of the pastors became known, a vehement zeal seized the
Libexines to have the Lord's Supper dispensed with unleavened bread. The Government
decided that it should be as the Libertines desired. With Calvin a much greater question
was whether the Communion should be given to these persons at all. As Easter approached,
the fury of the party increased. They ran through the streets at night voeiferating and
yelling. They would stop before the pastors' houses, calling out, "To the Rhone! to
the Rhone!" and would then fire off their arquebuses. They got up a masquerade in
which they parodied that very ordinance which their scrupulous consciences would not
permit them to receive save with unleavened bread. Frightful confusion prevailed in
Geneva. This is attested by eye-witnesses, and by those who had the best opportunities of
knowing the truth of what they have narrated. "Popery had indeed been forsworn,"
says Beza, "but many had not cast away with it those numerous and disgraceful
disorders which had for a long time flourished in the city, given up as it was for so many
years to canons and impure priests."[8] "Nothing was to be heard," says Reset, "but
informations and quarrels between the former and present lords (the old and new members of
Council), some being the ringleaders, and others following in their steps, the whole
mingled with reproaches about the booty taken in the war, or the spoils carried off from
the churches."[9] "I
have lived here," says Calvin himself, describing those agitations, "engaged in
strange contests. I have been saluted in mockery of an evening before my own door, with
fifty or sixty shots of arquebuses. You may imagine how that must asteroid a poor scholar,
timid as I am, and as I confess I always was."[10] It was amid these shameful scenes that the day arrived which was
to show whether the Libertines backed by the Council, or Calvin supported by his own great
principle, would give way.
On the morning of Easter Sunday, 1538, the great bell Clemence rung out its summons, and
all the quarters of the city poured out their inhabitants to fill the churches. Farel
ascended the pulpit of St. Gervais, Calvin occupied that of St. Peter's. In the audience
before them they could see the Libertines in great force. All was calm on the surface, but
a single word might let loose the winds and awake the tempest. Nevertheless they would do
their duty. The pastors expounded the nature of the Lord's Supper; they described the
dispositions required in those who would worthily partake of it; and appealing to the
disorders which had reigned in the city in the past weeks, in proof that these were not
the dispositions of the majority of those now assembled, they concluded by intimating that
this day the Holy Supper would not be dispensed. Hereupon, outcries drowned the voice of
the preachers. The uproar was specially great in St. Gervais; swords were unsheathed, and
furious men rushed toward the pulpit. Farel waited with his arms crossed. He had long
since learned to look on angry faces without trembling. Calvin in St. Peter's was equally
resolute. Sooner should his blood dye the boards he stood upon, than he would be guilty of
the profanation demanded of him. "We protest before you all," he said,
"that we are not obstinate about the question of bread, leavened or unleavened; that
is a matter of indifference, which is left to the discretion of the Church. If we decline
to administer the Lord's Supper, it is because we are in a great difficulty, which prompts
us to this course." Farel had borne the brunt of the tempest in the morning, it was
to be Calvin's turn in the evening. On descending to the Church of Rive, the former
Convent of St. Francis, near the shores of the lake, he found the place already filled
with an assembly, many of whom had brought their swords with them. Whatever apprehensions
the young Reformer may have felt, he presented to the assembly, which hung upon the edge
of the storm, a calm and fearless front. He had not been more than eighteen months in
their city, and yet he had inspired them with an awe greater than that which they felt
even for Farel.
These two were men of the same spirit, as of the same office, and yet they were unlike,
and the Genevans saw the difference. Farel was the man of oratory, Calvin was the man of
power. In what attribute or faculty, or combination of faculties, his power lay, they
would have had great difficulty in saying. Certainly it was not in his gestures, nor in
his airs, nor in the pomp of his rhetoric, for no one could more sedulously eschew these
things; but that he did possess power — calm, inflexible, resistless power —
they all knew, for they all felt it. Farel's invectives and denunciations were terrible;
his passion was grand, like the thunderstorms of their own Alps; but there was something
in the noise that tempered his severity, and softened his accusations. Calvin never
thundered and lightened. Had he done so it would have been a relief; the Genevans would
have felt him to be more human and genial — a man of like passions with themselves;
at least, of like passions with Farel, whom they regarded with a mixture of love and fear,
and whom they could not help half-forgiving, even when he was rousing their anger by his
reproaches. But in his terrible calmness, in his passionless reason, Calvin stood apart
from, and rose above, all around him — above Farel — even above the Council,
whose authority was dwarfed before the moral majesty that seemed to clothe this man. He
was among them like an incarnate conscience; his utterances were decrees, just and
inflexible, like the laws of heaven themselves. Whence had he come, this mysterious and
terrible man? Noyon was his birth-place, but what influences had moulded such a spirit?
and what chance was it which had thrown him into their city to hold them in his spell, and
rule them as neither bishop, nor duke, nor Pope had been able to rule them? They would try
whether they could not break his yoke. For this end they had brought their swords with
them.
The historians who were eye-witnesses of the scene that followed are discreet in their
accounts of it. It did not end so tragically as it threatened, and instead of facts that
would not redound to the honor of their city, they treat us to felicitations that the
affair had no worse a termination. What the words were that evoked the tempest we do not
know. It was not necessary that they should be strong, seeing the more violent the more
welcome would they be. While Calvin is preaching we see a dark frown pass suddenly over
the faces of the assembly. Instantly there come shouts and outcries; a moment after, the
clatter of weapons being hastily unsheathed salutes our ears; the next, we are dazzled by
the gleam of naked swords. The tempest has burst with tropical suddenness and violence.
The infuriated men, waving their weapons in the face of the preacher, press forward to the
pulpit. One single stroke and Calvin's career would have been ended, and not his only
— with him would have ended the career of Geneva as the new foothold of the
Reformation. Farel had felt the burden too heavy for him; and had Calvin fallen, we know
of no one who could have taken his place. What a triumph for Rome, who would have
re-entered Geneva over the mangled corpse of the Reformer! But what a disaster to Europe,
the young day of which would have been quenched in the blackness of a two-fold night
— that of a rising atheism, and that of a returning superstition!
But the movement was not fated so to end. He who had scattered the power of emperors and
armies when they stood in battle array against the Reformation, stilled the clamours of
furious mobs when they rose to extinguish it. The same buckler that covered Luther in the
Diet of Worms, was extended over the head of Calvin amid the glittering swords in the
Church of Rive. In that assembly were some who were the friends of the Reformer; they
hastily threw themselves between the pulpit and the furious men who were pressing forward
to strike. This check gave time to the less hostile among Calvin's foes to recover their
senses, and they now remonstrated with the more violent on the crime they were about to
commit, and the scandal they would cause if they succeeded in their object. Their anger
began to cool; first one and then another put back his sword into its sheath; and after
some time calm was restored. Michael Roset, the chronicler and magistrate, who appears to
have been present, says, with an evident sense of relief, "The affair passed off
without bloodshed ;" and the words of the syndic Guatier, who reckoned its peaceable
ending a sort of miracle, show how near it had been to having a very different
termination,[11] The
Reformer's friends did not think it prudent to leave him undefended, though the storm
seemed to have spent itself. Forming an escort round him, they conducted him to his home.
On the morrow the Council of Two Hundred met, and pronounced sentence of banishment upon
the two ministers. This sentence was ratified on the following day by the Council-General
or assembly of the people. On the decision being intimated to Calvin, he replied with
dignity, "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." The Council rested its sentence of banishment upon the
question of "unleavened bread." Herein it acted disingenuously. The pastors had
protested that the question of leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist was with them
an open one.
The real ground of banishment is one on which the magistrates of Geneva, for obvious
reasons, are silent — namely, the refusal of Farel and Calvin to celebrate the Lord's
Supper, on account of the blasphemies and immoralities indulged in by many of those who
demanded admission to the Communion-table. Before being condemned, Calvin asked to be
heard in his defense before the Council-General, but his request was refused.[12]
It is important to mark, at this stage, that the principle on which the Reformer
rested his whole scheme of Church government was — holy things are not to be given to
the unholy. This principle he laboured to make inviolable, as being the germ, in the first
place, of purity in the Church; and, in the second, of morality and liberty in the State.
The principle was, as we have seen, on this its first attempt to assert itself, cast out
and trodden under foot of an infidel democracy. That party, in the days of Calvin, was
only in its first sprouting; it has since grown to greatness, and put forth its strength
on a wider theater, and the world has seen it, particularly in France, pull down and tread
into the dust kings and hierarchies. But Calvin's principle, being Divine, could not
perish under the blows now dealt it. It was overborne for the moment, and driven out of
Geneva in the persons of its champions; but it lifted itself up again, and, rentering
Geneva, was there, fifteen years afterwards, crowned with victory.
CHAPTER 12 Back to Top
CALVIN AT STRASBURG — ROME DRAWS NEAR
TO GENEVA.
Farel at Neuchatel — Calvin at Strasburg — His Labors there — Disorders at
Geneva — Calvin's Poverty — Efforts of Rome to Retake Geneva — Cardinal
Sadoleto — His Letter to the Genevans — Who shall Reply to it? — Calvin
does so — Rising Tide of the Reformation — Ebb of Romanism — Conference
between the Protestants and Romanists at Frankfort — Calvin goes thither — No
Fruit of the Conference — Calvin and Melancthon's Interviews — Calvin's
Confidence in Melancthon — His tender Love for him — Calvin and Luther never
Meet — Luther placed amid the Teutonic Peoples, Calvin amid the Latin Nations —
Wisdom of this Arrangement.
WITH steps slow and sad, and looks cast behind — for it
was hard to relinquish all hope of a city on which they had bestowed so much labor —
did the two banished ministers pursue their uncertain way. After an ineffectual attempt on
the part of Bern and Zurich to compose the quarrel, Farel went to Neuchatel, which became
the field of his future labors, and thus he completed the building of which he had laid
the foundations in years gone by. Calvin, journeying by way of Basle, and halting awhile
in a city which he loved above all others, ultimately repaired to Strasburg, to which he
had been earnestly invited by the two pastors of that city, Bucer and Capito. Three years
of honorable labor awaited him in Strasburg.
Distinguished foreigners, exiles for the Gospel, gathered round him; the French refugees,
said to be about 15,000 in number, forming themselves into a congregation, made him their
pastor; and the Town Council, appropriating the Church of the Dominicans to his use,
appointed him to give lectures on the Scriptures. His audience was a more erudite and
polished one than any Geneva could then furnish, for only through Calvin was Geneva to
become learned. The love of Strasburg was as balm to the smitten and wounded heart of the
exile.[1]
The expulsion of the two ministers did not calm the tempest that raged in the little State
on the banks of the Leman. The Council, perhaps to show that they could govern without
Calvin, published some new edicts for the reformation of manners; but, alas! moral power
had departed with the ministers, and the commands of the magistrates were unheeded. The
more distant the retreating steps of Farel and Calvin, the louder grew the disorders in
the city they had left. The preachers, Marcourt and Morand, who now occupied the vacated
pulpits, were simply objects of contempt.[2] They soon quitted the city in disgust. The Council thought to make
the two rectors of the school which Farel had opened for though there were 900 priests
there was not a schoolmaster in Geneva — supply their place. The two teachers rose up
and shook the dust from their feet, and the school was closed. The dominant faction had
demanded "liberty," and now, left without either religious guide or secular
instructor, they were in a fair way of being as free as their hearts could wish, and
eminently pious to boot, if there be truth in the maxim that "ignorance is the mother
of devotion.[3]
Calvin, in his new sphere at Strasburg, preached four times a week, and discharged
all the other duties, private and public, of a faithful pastor. He lectured every day on
theological science to the students of the Academy, taking as his text-book the Gospel of
St. John and the Epistle to the Romans, which he expounded. The fame of his lectures drew
students from other countries, and Strasburg promised to rival Wittemberg as a school of
theology.[4] The
Reformer had asked no salary from the magistrates, and they were in no haste to assign him
one, and now he was in deep poverty: He appears to have been still in receipt of a small
sum from his paternal inheritance, which he strove to supplement by the sale of his books.
Painful it must have been to him to part with these, but he had no alternative, for we
find him writing to Farel at this time that he "did not possess a farthing." The
Senate of Strasburg afterwards appointed him a stipend, but so small that it did not
suffice for his wants. But we return to Geneva.
Calvin being gone, the Pope now drew near. He had been watching the ripening of the pear
for some time, and now he deemed it fit to be plucked. Cardinal Sadoleto was employed to
write a letter to the people of Geneva, which, it was thought, was all that was needed to
make them re-enter the old fold. Than Sadoleto no fitter man could have been found for
this task. Having passed his youth at the court of Leo X., he was quite as much a son of
the Renaissance as a son of the Church. He overflowed with that mild tolerance which, bred
of indifferentism, is sometimes mistaken for true liberality. He could write any number of
fine sentiments in the purest Latin. He was of irreproachable life. The Protestants
sometimes thought that he was about to become one of themselves. But no: he loved the calm
of letters, and the aesthetic delights of art. Above all, he rejoiced in the security and
comfort of an infallible Church. It saved the toil of inquiry and the torment of doubt.
His letter "to the Senate and People of Geneva" was such as might have been
expected from such a man. He began by protesting his ancient affection for them; he
praised their many noble qualities; and he "drowned his page" with his poignant
grief at their misfortunes. Alas! that they had suffered themselves to be seduced into
Protestantism, which, however, he was good enough to say contained a modicum of truth. And
so, tasking the elegance of his pen to the utmost, he coined some glowing compliments in
praise of Holy Writ, of Christ as the sole Author of salvation, and of the doctrine of
justification by faith. In thus expressing himself, Sadoleto had not the remotest
intention of becoming a disciple of the Protestant faith; he was only beckoning back the
Genevans to repose beneath the tiara. In an infallible Church only could they find escape
from such storms as the exercise of private judgment had let loose upon them.
The letter had the very opposite effect from that which it was expected to produce. It
helped to show the men of Geneva the brink to which they were drawing nigh. Are we then,
they said to themselves on reading the cardinal's letter, so near to Rome that the Pontiff
believes he has only to open the gates in order that we may come in? Moreover it made them
feel the loss they had sustained in the banishment of Calvin; they looked around for a man
to reply to Sadoleto, for they felt that his letter must not remain unanswered, but they
looked in vain. One name was on every lip as that of the man who alone was adequate to the
task of replying, but with the ink not yet dry in which the banishment of the man who bore
that name was written, they dared not utter it. This showed, however, that the tide had
begun to turn. Calvin meanwhile got a copy of the cardinal's letter at Strasburg, and
without waiting to be asked by the Genevans he answered it forthwith, and in such fashion
that Sadoleto made no second attempt of the sort.[5] Calvin's reply to Sadoleto was the work of six days, and it
remains a monument of his genius. He begins by paying a fine compliment to the cardinal's
learning and eloquence, and goes on to express his wonder at the "singular love and
goodwill" which Sadoleto, an entire stranger to the people of Geneva, had so suddenly
conceived for them, "of which nevertheless no fruit ever appeared."
"If," continues Calvin, "it was ambition and avarice," as Sadoleto had
hinted, which moved him in separating from Rome, what a blunder had he fallen into!
"Certain it is," said he, "if I had paid regard to my personal advantage, I
should never have separated from your faction." "Was not," he asks,
"our shortest way of attaining to wealth and honours to accept from the first the
conditions which you have offered us?" Apostates you call us, says Calvin. "The
men of Geneva, extricating themselves from the slough of error in which they were sunk,
have returned to the doctrine of the Gospel, and this thou callest abandoning the truth of
God. They have withdrawn from Papal tyranny, and this thou sayest is to separate from the
Church!" "We contradict the Fathers!" exclaims the Reformer, adverting to
another charge the cardinal had brought against the Protestants, "we are more nearly
in agreement with antiquity than you our opponents, as thou knowest, Sadoleto, and we ask
for nothing else than to see restored that ancient face of the Church which has been torn
to pieces and almost destroyed by the Pope and his faction." And after reminding the
cardinal of what his learning made him well acquainted with, namely, the condition of the
Church during the days of both the Greek and the Latin Fathers, Calvin asks him,
"Wilt thou call that man an enemy of antiquity who, full of zeal for ancient piety,
longs to restore in their first splendor the things which are now corrupted? With what
right are we accused of having subverted the ancient discipline by the very party that has
abolished it?"
With a few strokes Calvin next draws a picture of the state in which the Reformers found
the schools and the pulpits: nothing taught in the first but "pure sophistries,"
"tangled and twisted scholastic theology," "a kind of secret magic."
And as for the pulpits, "there were no sermons from which foolish old women did not
learn more dreams than they could relate in a month by their own fireside." Was it a
crime to have replaced that rubbish by a theology drawn from the Word of God, and to have
silenced the monks by filling the pulpits with preachers of the ancient Gospel? There
follow some noble passages on justification by faith, on Christ's sole mediatorship, on
worship, the Lord's Supper, the ministry, the Church, and then comes the close, in which
the Reformer reproduces, though in a contrary sense, Sadoleto's prosopopaeia. The cardinal
had cited Calvin and his brethren as criminals before the judgment-seat of God.
Calvin obeys this trumpet-summons. He comes to the dread tribunal to which the cardinal
had cited him, and he thus pleads: "I saw Christ cast into oblivion, and become
unprofitable; what was I to do? I saw the Gospel stifled by superstition; what was I to
do? I saw the Divine Word voluntarily ignored and hidden; what was I to do? If he is not
'to be reputed a traitor who, seeing the soldiers dispersed and scattered, raises the
captain's ensign, rallies them, and restores their order,' am I a traitor for having
raised amid the disbanded Church the old banner of Jesus Christ? For it is not a new and
'strange ensign which I have unfurled, but thy noble standard, O Lord!'" He adds,
with reference to Sadoleto's taunt that they had broken the peace, "Did they [the
Romanists] not most suddenly and furiously betake themselves to the sword and the gibbet?
Did they not think that their sole resource was in arms and cruelty?" They have given
us in default of other consecration that of tribulation and of blood. We know what we have
done, and in whom we have believed, and "heaven grant, Sadoleto, that thou and thine
may one day be able to say as much sincerely."[6]
Thus did Calvin, though banished, continue to cover Geneva with his shield. The
writing ran quickly through Europe. Luther read it and was delighted beyond measure with
it. His eye at once discerned its freedom, strength, and majesty. "Here," said
he, "is a writing which has hands and feet. I rejoice that God raises up such men.
They will continue what I have begun against Antichrist, and by the help of God they will
finish it."
Calvin has now become, or is very soon to become, the center of the movement, whose
present position in Christendom is somewhat perilous. A crisis had arrived in the great
conflict between Romanism and Protestantism. It was clear to both parties that the breach
that divided them must be healed now, and that if a settlement was much longer delayed the
controversy would grow into an embittered and sanguinary war, prolonged from decade to
decade, and it might be for a still longer period. During the years that Calvin resided at
Strasburg, the Popish and Protestant worlds assembled in not fewer than four successive
conventions, to try whether it was not possible to frame a basis on which the two Churches
might come together, and peace be restored to Christendom. The initiative of these
conferences was taken by the emperor on the part of the Romanists; and indeed of the two
parties it was the latter that had the stronger reasons for holding out the olive-branch.
Twenty-five years had now passed away in their efforts to put down Protestantism, and
instead of being able to recount a series of victories, they had little to show save a
list of defeats. All things worked contrariwise for them. If they held a disputation, it
was only to expose the weakness of their champions; if they convoked a synod, it was only
to hear a Protestant Confession; if they held a conference, it was to have some new
concession wrung from them; if they planted stakes, they found they were but sowing the
seed of new martyrs; if they leagued among themselves in order to strike a combined blow,
some untoward event fell out, some ally betrayed them, or the ominous figure of the Turk
started up, and so their plans came to nothing. The bow broke just as the arrow was about
to be let fly.
And, then, what at this hour was the attitude of the several nations as regarded their
obedience to the Papal chair? One half of the European States had placed themselves, or
were hastening to do so, beneath the banner on which was inscribed: "An open Bible
and a free conscience."
The two Saxonys, Prussia, Hesse-Cassel, Wurtemberg, with some smaller States, and a
multitude of free cities, were now ranged round the great PROTEST. The better half of
Switzerland was lost to Rome. Few, save the herdsmen of the mountains, now received her
pardons and sent their money in return. Denmark and Sweden had revolted. The powerful
kingdoms of England and France were at that hour trembling in the balance.
Everywhere men were kicking against Rome's ancient and sacred sway, and soon, on the north
of the Alps, few subjects would remain to her. Parliaments were passing laws to check her
usurpations; her bulls were dis-honored; palls were at a discount; tithes, annats,
reservations, and expectatives were but as the gleanings after the harvest; palmers and
anchorets were disappearing from her highways; men were burying her relics instead of
worshipping them; the cowl and frock were being abandoned for the garb of honest labor;
schools and hospitals were replacing monasteries and convents; the reading of the
Scriptures was supplanting the counting of beads, and the preaching of the Gospel the
chanting of litanies and masses.
And then, in addition to all these losses, when the Romanists looked at the other side
they could not conceal from themselves the strength of the Protestant position. Not only
did the Reformation divide Christendom — not only did it receive the support of
States, princes, and free cities — but, further, it had created a multitude of
agencies, which were continually at work multiplying its adherents, and extending still
farther its area.
Foremost among these were the Sacred Oracles in the mother-tongue of the nations. In the
rear of this Divine instrumentality came nearly all the men of thought, of letters, and of
eloquence which the age could boast. Ever and anon Luther's pen was darting flashes of
light over Europe.
Recently had come that magnificent demonstration, the Institutes. That work was moving up
and down in Christendom, an embattled phalanx of argument, compared with which the legions
of the emperor were as weakness. Around the two great chiefs, Luther and Calvin, were a
hundred keen and disciplined intellects ready to expose a sophism, to confront a
falsehood, to laugh at folly, and to castigate hypocrisy and arrogance. Moreover, the
habit of free inquiry, and the art of combining — of which the Schmalkald League
furnished an example, which was not lost upon its opponents — had come to the aid of
that cause which had given them birth. In fine, among the forces on the side of
Protestantism, not the least was the spirit of its disciples. They could face the dungeon
and the rack, the scaffold and the stake, and not quail; and in the room of those who were
burned to ashes to-day, hundreds would start up to-morrow to grasp the falling standard,
and bear it onward to victory. These considerations could not but force themselves upon
the minds of the Romanists, and weigh with them in the overtures they now made to the
Protestants. From the far-off banks of the Tagus came a letter full of not unfriendly
professions. Writing in the Alcazar at Toledo, the 25th of November, 1539, the emperor
invited the Protestant princes of Germany to meet and try whether they could not devise
measures of conciliation.[7] Charles
intimated at the same time that the King of France, with whom he was then at peace, was
equally solicitous on this point with himself.
In pursuance of this letter, the princes assembled next February at Frankfort. Eldo,
Archbishop of Lunden, represented the emperor at the conference. Calvin, accompanied by
Sturm, went thither, at the urgent solicitations of his brethren, mainly with the view of
watching over the interests of the Swiss Churches, and of having the pleasure of meeting
and conferring with Melancthon. The debates were long, but the conclusions reached were of
no great moment. All resulted in a truce, which was to last for fifteen months, to permit
a convention of theologians and learned men to meet and discuss the steps necessary for
quieting the religious troubles. Without the truce the members would not have been sure of
their heads. Meanwhile, prosecutions against the Protestants in the imperial chamber were
to be dropped, and no one on either side was to be disturbed on account of his religion.
The Protestants thought they saw the cloven foot in the attempts to confine this agreement
to those of the Augsburg Confession. The emperor had the best reasons for excluding the
Swiss from its benefits. He knew that should the German and Swiss Reformers combine, and
form one Protestant camp, extending from the Baltic to the banks of the Rhone, and the
foot of the Pennine mountains, the cause of Rome would be lost north of the Alps, and his
own dynastic projects along with it.[8]
We turn with a peculiar pleasure from the chamber of conference, to the yet more
sacred chamber where the Reformation's greatest scholar, and its greatest theologian, were
about to commune together. From the first moment Melancthon and Calvin understood each
other. Of Melancthon's inviolable loyalty at heart to the Protestant creed Calvin had not
a doubt. The unwise concessions into which his love of peace at times betrayed him, though
they drew forth Calvin's rebuke, never shook his confidence in him. A free interchange of
sentiments on the nature of the Eucharist took place, and Calvin, as we learn from his
letters to Farel, was delighted to find that Melancthon's opinions nearly approximated to
his own, although his veneration for Luther kept him from saying so in public. Future
discussions, however showed that the unanimity was not quite so great as Calvin had hoped.
Their friendship, nevertheless, continued unbroken throughout their lives, and yielded its
fruits to the Church of God. How deep and tender Calvin's love for Melancthon was, is
shown by the touching words written after the grave had closed over the latter: "O
Philip Melancthon — for it is thou whom I address — thou who now livest at the
hand of God with Christ, awaiting us on high till we are gathered with thee into blessed
repose — a hundred times hast thou said to me when, wearied with toil and vexation,
thou didst lean thy head upon my bosom — Would to God, would to God, that I might die
upon that bosom! As for me, later, a hundred times have I wished that it had been granted
us to be together. Certainly thou wouldst have been bolder to face struggles, more
courageous to despise envy and calumny. Then, also, would have been suppressed the
malignity of many whose audacity increased in proportion to what they called thy
pusillanimity."[9]
There is one other meeting that would have had greater interest for us than even
that which we see now taking place. It was intensely longed for on one side at least.
Writing to Luther, Calvin says, "Oh, if I could fly towards thee, and enjoy thy
society, were it but for a few hours!" One cannot help asking, had Luther and Calvin
met, which would have appeared the greater? Would the breach in the Protestant host have
been healed, and the Wittemberg and Genevan camps been merged into one?
Would the splendor of Luther have paled before the calm majesty of Calvin, or would the
mighty strength of the latter have bowed before the swift intuition and dazzling genius of
the former? But, it was not to be that these two men should ever see one another in the
flesh. They were formed to dwell in spheres apart. The impetuous Luther was given to the
Teutonic nations, which needed his enthusiasm to kindle them. Calvin was placed amid the
excitable and volatile peoples of the South, where his severe logic and love of order
helped to curb their tendency to excess and their passion to theorise. Had Luther gone to
France — and there was a moment, outside the gate of Augsburg, on the occasion of his
flight from Cajetan, when he thought of turning his horse's head in that direction he
would have kindled a conflagration by his eloquence, which, after speedily blazing up,
would as speedily have sunk down and died out. And had Calvin, when he first visited
Strasburg, instead of turning southward to Basle, gone forward to Wittemberg, and made
Germany the scene of his labors, as he had some thoughts of doing, he would there
doubtless have been able to plant his system of Church order, but without that amount of
enthusiasm on the part of those who submitted to it, necessary to give it permanancy, or
to carry it over Christendom, while the South would have become a prey to the pantheistic
theories of such men as Ochin and Servetus. What a beautiful ordering in the gifts of
these two men, in the place assigned to each in the field, and the time when they entered
it!
Luther had been the center in the first act of the great drama. That was now closing, and
at the center of the second act, which was about to open, Calvin stands up; with an
enthusiasm as great, but a logic more severe, to complete and crown the work of his
predecessor.
CHAPTER 13 Back to Top
ABORTIVE CONFERENCES AT HAGENAU AND
RATISBON.
Convention at Hagenau — Attempt to Steal a March on the Protestants — Firmness
of the German Princes — Conference at Ratisbon — Perplexities of Charles V.
— Cardinal Contarini — Programme — Auspicious Beginning of Conference
— Agreement on several Doctrines — The Dead-lock of Transubstantiation —
Hopes come to Nothing — Would Conciliation have been a Blessing to Christendom?
— It would have given Entombment to Protestantism, and New Life to Atheistic
Revolution.
THE next convention was held at Hagenau, the 25th of June,
1510. The assembly was presided over by King Ferdinand. The Protestant princes were
represented by their deputies. A great number of divines were present, and among others
Calvin. Melancthon was taken in on the road, and was thus unavoidably absent. Ferdinand,
on the ground that the Protestant princes were not present, adjourned the assembly, to
meet at Worms on October 28th.[1] Meanwhile,
it was attempted to steal a march on the Protestants by requiring them to restore the
buildings:, lands, and revenues which they had taken from the Papists, and to promise that
no new members should be received into the Schmalkald League. These proposals were
indignantly rejected. First, let the religious question be decided, said the Protestants,
and then the details will adjust themselves. They had robbed no man: the appropriated
Church revenues they had devoted to the religious instruction of the people, to the
support of schools, and the relief of the poor. And as to refusing the protection of the
League to those who were persecuted for righteousness' sake, they spurned the idea of
binding themselves to so dastardly a policy.[2] Calvin, who was not readily imposed upon, nor easily satisfied,
bears the highest testimony in his letters to the zeal of these men, as he witnessed it at
Frankfort. Sooner than dissolve their League, and abandon defenceless provinces and towns
to the will of the emperor and the Pope, they would see their cities ploughed as a field,
their castles razed, and themselves led to the scaffold.[3]
The conference assembled at Worms, as appointed, but on the third day came letters from
the emperor dissolving it, and summoning it to meet, with greater solemnity, at Ratisbon,
in January, 1541. [4] The
members not arriving in time, the Diet of Ratisbon opened only in April. Calvin, deputed
by the city of Strasburg, went thither, though he expected little from the conference,
mistrusting the sincerity of the Roman managers, and knowing, perhaps better than any
other man, that an impossible task had been assigned to them when they were required to
reconcile essentially antagonistic creeds. And yet many things seemed to prognosticate a
prosperous issue to this the fourth attempt, within the space of two years, to effect the
pacification of Christendom. First, the position of the emperor's affairs made it clearly
his interest to be on friendly terms with the princes of the Protestant League. He was
raising armies, expending vast sums, wasting his years and strength, and taxing his genius
in toilsome expeditions and mighty undertakings, and yet the perplexities around his
throne were thickening instead of lessening. Verily, he had no need to court new
difficulties. Charles spoke truth, doubtless, when, by the mouth of Grenville, he opened
the Diet with these words: "When he perceived how religion had torn and rent asunder
the Empire, and given occasion to the Turk to pierce almost into the bowels of Germany, it
had been a great grief to him, and, therefore, for many years past he had, with their own
consents, been essaying ways of pacification."[5]
The Pope, Paul III., leaned scarcely less than the emperor towards conciliation. In
token of his friendly disposition he sent Gaspar Contarini as his legate to the
conference. A patrician of Venice by birth, Cardinal Contarini was of pure life, of devout
disposition, and of liberal opinions. He had been a member of "The Oratory of Divine
Love," an association which sought to promote a large reform of Church abuses, and on
the important doctrine of justification approximated very closely to Luther. Not less
desirous were the Protestant divines of healing the breach, provided it could be done
without burying the Reformation. When they thought of the sacrifices which the continuance
of the struggle implied the desolations of war, and the blood that must flow on field and
scaffold — they shrunk from the responsibility of hastily closing the door against
any really well-meant attempt at union. At no former moment had peace seemed so near.
The proceedings began by Grenville presenting to the conference a book, which he said had
received the emperor's approval, and which he wished them to adopt as the basis of their
discussions. The book consisted of a series of chapters or treatises on the doctrines, the
rites, the Sacraments, the orders, and the constitution and powers of the Church. The
members were to say what in it they agreed with, and what in it they dissented from.[6] The Pope naturally wished the
weighty point of his supremacy to be first taken in hand and settled; but Contarini,
departing from his instructions in this matter, postponed the question of the Pope's
powers to the end, and gave precedence to the doctrines of the Christian system. For some
time all went smoothly enough. A very tolerable unanimity was found to exist between the
two sides of the assembly on the doctrines of original sin, free-will, and justification.
Calvin was astonished to find the Romanists conceding so much. "We have
retained," says he, writing to Farel, "all the substance of the true doctrine.
If you consider with what kind of men we have had to agree, you will acknowledge that much
has been accomplished."[7] As
yet, no cloud appeared in the sky of the conference.
Next came the subject of the Church. The conference was agreed on the constitution of the
Church; as regards its authority it began to be seen that there were two parties in the
assembly. To obviate immediate danger, it was proposed to pass on to other questions, and
leave this one for future settlement.[8]
The Sacraments followed. The Diet was nearing the more critical questions. There
was here some jarring, but the Protestants conceded the ceremonies as things indifferent,
and the conference was able to proceed. At last came the consideration of the Sacrament of
the Lord's Supper. "There," said Calvin, "stood the impassable rock which
barred the way to farther progress."[9] "I had," continues Calvin, "to explain in Latin
what were my sentiments. Without fear of offense, I condemned that peculiar local
presence; the act of adoration I declared to be altogether insufferable."[10]
We now behold the representatives of the Popish and Protestant worlds gathered in
presence of the Roman sphinx — the stupendous mystery of transubstantiation. If they
shall solve the riddle — reconcile the dogma to Scripture, to reason, and to sense
— all will be well; they will have united the two Churches and pacified Europe; but
if they shall fail, there awaits Christendom a continuance of divisions, of strifes, of
wars. One after another comes forward with his solution, in the hope that, like another
OEdipus, he will read the riddle, disarm the monster, and avert from Christendom the
untold calamities with which it is threatened. First come the Protestants. "Philip
and Bucer," says Calvin, "have drawn up ambiguous and insincere formulas, to try
whether they could satisfy the opposite party by yielding nothing."[11] He bears his testimony to their
"best intentions," but expects nothing of their "equivocation." Next
come the Romanists. They enveloped the whole in a cloud of mystification. The riddle is
still unread; the mystery still stands unsolved, despite the learning, the wit, and the
sophistry which have been expended upon it to make it comprehensible; it is as defiant of
Scripture, of reason, and of sense as ever.[12]
At this stage an incident partly tragic and partly grotesque came to diversify the
proceedings of the convention. One day, the veteran controversialist, Dr. Eck, being
worsted by Melancthon in an argument on the Eucharist, went home in a rage, and drank so
deep at supper as to drown his sense of discomfiture and contract a fever at the same
time. His gruff stentorian voice was heard no more in the debates, nor his tall,
broad-shouldered and burly form seen in the conference hall.[13]
Afterwards the questions of private masses, invocation of saints, and the Pope's
supremacy received a languid discussion, but with no satisfactory re-suits. The skies, so
fair when the conference assembled, were now overcast with heavy clouds. The promise of
peace had failed. The emperor dissolved the Diet, with the promise, always forthcoming
when affairs had got into a dead-lock, that a General Council would speedily convene, and
that should the Pope refuse to call such, he himself would convoke a Diet of the Empire
for the settlement of all the religious differences of Christendom.[14]
So ended the Diet of Ratisbon. Had it succeeded in uniting the two Churches, the
history of the world would henceforward have been different. Would it have been better? We
answer unhesitatingly, it would have been worse. God's plans are not only larger and wiser
but more beneficent than the thoughts of man. A union on only such terms as were then
possible would have closed the career of Protestantism; for a half-Reformation would have
been no Reformation. Would then the Church of Rome, her doctrines modified, we shall
suppose, her worst abuses corrected, and her sway become more tolerant, have resumed
possession of Europe, and pursued her course unobstructed by rival or opponent? We reply
emphatically, it would not. The Popish champions altogether overlook the forces which were
at work in Christendom, when they lay the misfortunes of their Church at the door of
Protestantism. The Church of Rome was morally bankrupt before the Reformers arose. The
nations had lost faith in her. The pantheistic principles which had been springing up ever
since the twelfth century were fast coming to a head, and but for the moral breakwater
which Luther and Calvin erected, they would by the end of the sixteenth century have
broken out and swept over Europe in all the fury of a destructive revolution.
Protestantism did not awaken, it mitigated the angry feelings of which Rome was the
object, and diverted them into the channel of Scriptural Reformation. The Christendom of
that day was called to make its choice between the teachers of morality and order, such as
Calvin, and the apostles of atheism, with its attendant crimes, revolutions and woes, such
as Castellio and Servetus. Unhappily the Roman Church mistook her friends for her foes. We
would ask, how has it fared with her in those countries which remained Popish? Is it in
lands where the Reformation established itself, or in those where it was suppressed, that
the "Church" has been most exempt from spoliation, and her priests from
violence? and to what shore is it that they flee in those oft-recurring tempests of
revolution that sweep across the Popish world?
The Reformation in its Lutheran form had now culminated. It had planted in the mind of
Christendom the great radical principle of renovation, "salvation through
grace;" but, instead of building upon it an organised Church, to act as a moral
breakwater against the godless principles ready to rush in and fill the void caused by the
partial demolition of Romanism, the Reformation in Germany was passing into political
action; it was running to seed. What was needed was a vigorous Church, what was formed was
a political league. A new center had to be found for the principle of Protestantism,
where, disentangling itself from political alliances, it might grow into a great purifying
and restraining power, and be seen by the world, not simply as a body of doctrines, but as
a new and holy society. While a number of cunning artificers at Ratisbon are trying to
repair the old fabric and keep it from falling, a new building is rising elsewhere.
CHAPTER 14 Back to Top
CALVIN RETURNS TO GENEVA.
The Movement must resume its March — Calvin at Strasburg — The Libertines at
Geneva — Calvin's Four Persecutors Perish — Tide Turns at Geneva —
Deputations to entreat Calvin's Return — The Idea of going back Terrible to him
— Bucer's Adjuration — Starts on his Return Journey — Enters Geneva —
Reception — Lessons Learned in Exile — Returns Fitter for his Work —
Idelette de Bure — His Salary, etc.
HAD the Diet at Ratisbon succeeded in finding, what both
parties in the convention so sincerely labored to discover, a basis of agreement, Calvin
would not have returned to Geneva. There would have been no need to seek a new center for
a Reformation which had run. its course, and was about to disappear from the stage; It was
saved, however, from the entombment which agreement would have given it. The movement is
again to resume its march. Its second and grandest act is about to open, and accordingly
Calvin is on his way back to Geneva.
While living honored in Strasburg, each day occupied in fruitful labors, interrupted only
by attendances at imperial Diets, the public feeling respecting the Reformer had been
undergoing a great change on the banks of the Leman. The faction of the Libertines,
reinforced by Anabaptists and Papists, grew every day more ungovernable; Licentiousness
and tumult ran riot now that Calvin was gone.[1] The year 1539 passed in the most outrageous saturnalia.[2] The Council, helpless in the
face of these disorders, began to repent of what they had done. The four syndics who had
been mainly active in the banishment of Calvin were now out of the way. One had perished
on the scaffold, charged with the crime of surrendering Genevese territory; another,
accused of sedition, had attempted to escape by his window, but, falling headlong, broke
his neck.
His fellow-citizens, on learning his tragic end, called to mind that he had said
tauntingly to Calvin, "Surely the city-gate was wide enough to let him go out."[3] The two remaining syndics,
implicated in the same charges, had betaken themselves to flight. All this happened in the
same year and the same month.
It was now 1540. The city registers show the daily rise in the tide of popular feeling for
Calvin's recall. September 21st: the Council charged Amy Perrin, one of its members,
"to find means, if he could, to bring back Master Calvin." October 13th: it was
resolved to write a letter "to Monsieur Calvin that he would assist us." October
19th: the Council of Two Hundred resolved, "in order that the honor and glory of God
may be promoted," to seek all possible means to have "Master Caulvin as
preacher." October 20th: it was ordered in the General Council, or Assembly of the
People, "to send to Strasburg to fetch Master Jean Calvinus, who is very learned, to
be minister in this city."[4] The
enthusiasm of the citizens is thus described by an eye-witness, Jacques Bernard:
"They all cried out, ' Calvin, Calvin! we wish Calvin, the good and learned man, and
true minister of Jesus Christ!'"[5]
Three several deputations did Geneva send to entreat the return of the man whom,
two years before, it had chased from its gates with contumely and threats. The same two
cantons, Bern and Zurich, whose approaches in the way of mediation it then repulsed, were
now asked to use their good offices with the magistrates of Strasburg, in order to
overcome their unwillingness to forego Calvin's services. In addition to the Senate's
advances, numerous private citizens wrote to the Reformer in urgent terms soliciting his
return. These letters found Calvin already on his way to the Diet at Worms, whither the
deputy of Geneva followed him.[6] The
repentant city opens its gates. Shall he go back?
It was a critical moment, not in Calvin's history only, but in that of Christendom; though
neither Calvin nor any other man could then estimate the momentous issues that hung upon
his decision. The question of going back threw him into great perplexity. The two years he
had already passed in Geneva, with the contradictions, perils, and insults with which they
were filled up, rose vividly before him. If he returns, shall he not have to endure it all
over again? Going back was like lying down on a bed of torture. The thought, he tells us,
filled him with horror. "Who will not pardon me," he writes, "if I do not
again willingly throw myself into a whirlpool which I have found so dangerous?"[7] He appeared to himself of all
men the most unfit for a career so stormy as that which awaited him at Geneva. In a sense
he judged correctly. He was naturally shy. His organisation was exquisitely strung.
Sensitive and tender, he recoiled from the low arts and the coarse abuse of rough and
unprincipled opponents. It was sympathy and love that he sought for. But it is exactly on
a constitution like this that it is possible to graft the finest and loftiest courage.
Qualities like these, when found in combination with high conscientiousness and lofty
aims, as they were in Calvin's case, become changed under discipline, and in fitting
circumstances develop into their opposites. The shrinking delicacy or timidity which
quails before a laugh or a sneer disappears, and a chivalrous boldness comes in its room,
which finds only delight in facing danger and confronting opposition. The sense of pain is
absorbed in the conscious grandeur of the aim, and the sensitive man stands up in a
courage which the whole world can neither bend nor break.
Calvin disburdened his mind to his brethren, telling them with what apprehensions this
call to his former field of labor had filled him, yet that he would obey, should they deem
it his duty to go. They knew his worth, and were reluctant indeed to part with him; but
when they thought on Geneva, situated on the borders of Italy and France, and offering so
many facilities for carrying the light into these countries, they at once said, "This
is your post .of service." Not yet, however, could Calvin conquer his aversion. The
city on the banks of the Leman was to him a "chamber of torture;" he shuddered
to enter it. Bucer stood forward, and with an adjuration similar to that which Farel had
formerly employed to constrain him to abide in Geneva, he constrained Calvin to return to
it. Bucer bade him beware of the punishment of Jonas for refusing to go and preach
repentance to the Ninevites.[8] This
was enough; the die was cast: mobs might rage, faction might plot, a hundred deaths might
await him in Geneva, he would go nevertheless, since duty called him.
He now began to prepare for his journey. Loaded with many marks of honor by the
magistrates of Strasburg, he bade adieu to:that city. A mounted herald, sent from Geneva,
rode before him. He traveled slowly, halting at Neuchatel to compose some differences
which had sprung up in the flock of Farel, and solace himself a little while in the
society of the most loved of all his friends, before crossing the territory of the Vaud,
and resuming his great task. On the 13th of September we behold him entering the gates of
Geneva, his face still pale, but lighted up with his earnest look and eagle eye. He
climbs, amid the reverend gaze of the citizens, the steep and narrow Rue des Chanoines,
and takes up his abode in a house prepared for him beforehand at the head of that street,
with its little garden behind, and a glorious vista of lake and mountains beyond —
the broad blue Leman, with the verdant and woody Jura on this hand, and the great Alps, in
all their snowy magnificence, on that. It has been often asked, was Calvin insensible to
these glories? And it has been answered, he was, seeing he says not a word about them in
his letters. No more does St. Paul in his, though his labors were accomplished amid scenes
of classic fame, and physical beauty. The general, in the heat of action, has no time to
note the scenery that may lie around the battle-field. What to Calvin was Geneva but a
battle-field? it was the center of a great conflict, which enlarged year after year till
it came to be coextensive with Christendom, and every movement in which Calvin had to
superintend and direct. The grandeur of the natural objects that surrounded him, at times,
doubtless fixed his eye and tranquillised his soul, but with the alternations of hope and
fear, sorrow and triumph, filling his mind as the battle around him flowed or ebbed, he
may well be excused if he refused to sink the Reformer in the painter.
In being sent into exile Calvin was, in fact, sent to school. Every day of his sojourn at
Strasburg his powers were maturing, and his vision enlarging, and when at last he returns
to Geneva he is seen to be fully armed for the great fight that awaits him there. The
study of his character, previous to his expatriation, reveals these defects, which, if not
corrected, might have seriously marred his success. He yearned too strongly for sympathy
— we do not say praise — with his work and his aims. His own delight in what was
true and lofty was so intense that he reckoned too readily on finding the same in others,
and was in the same proportion discouraged when he failed to find it. He must learn to do
the work for the work's sake, irrespective altogether of censure or sympathy, save the
sympathy of One, the Master even. This first infirmity begat a second, a guilelessness
bordering on simplicity. He thought that he had but to show himself actuated by upright
and high aims in order to disarm opposition and conciliate friends and fellow-laborers. He
did not make sufficient allowance for the shortsightedness, the selfishness, the craft,
the cruelty that are in the heart of man. But the deep wound he received in "the
house of his friends" helped to cure him of this weakness. He knew better than before
what was in man. The sharpest injuries he saw were to come not from the Romanists, but
from professed Protestants. He now stood armed on this side.
But the greatest defect in the character of the Reformer grew out of one of his more
notable excellences. We refer to the intensity and tenacity with which he laid hold on his
object. This was apt to lead to the too exclusive concentration of his powers on the task
or the spot that engaged him for the time. It tended, in short, to isolation. Up to his
first coming to Geneva he had lived only in French circles; the greater world of the
Reformation he had not entered; and had he never made acquaintance with a wider sphere,
there was a danger of his being only the man of Geneva, and giving to a little State what
was meant for Christendom. He must go forth, he must tread German earth, he must breathe
German air, he must survey from this post of observation the length and breadth of the
great movement, at the center of which is his own permanent place, and for three
successive years must his eye be kept fixed on that wide field, till what is merely
national or denominational has dropped out of view, or at least assumed its proportional
importance, and only what is oecumenical and eternal remains. Here at Strasburg he will
associate not with scholars and burghers only, but with practical Reformers, with princes,
and with the leading minds of many various nationalities; and thus we find that when a
second time he presents himself at the gates of Geneva, he is no longer the Frenchman
simply, he is of no nation because of all nations. To the clear, sharp-cut, beautiful
genius of France he now adds the robustness of the Teuton. He feels as deeply as ever the
necessity of guarding the purity of the Communion-table, for it is the point from which he
is to work outward for the regeneration of the Church in the first place, and the State in
the second, and accordingly his aims are no longer bounded by the limits of Geneva; they
stretch wide around, and the little city becomes the pedestal simply on which he places
that spiritual apparatus by which he is to regenerate Christendom.
Calvin, the stern, the severe, insensible alike to Alpine grandeurs and to female
loveliness, had married while at Strasburg.[9] Idelette de Bure, the woman who had given her hand to the
Reformer, came from Liege, one of the earliest among the cities of the Netherlands which
embraced the Gospel. She was a widow. Her modest yet courageous deportment as evinced in
facing the perils to which the profession of the Gospel exposed her, her devoted
affections and deep-seated piety as shown in ministering to the sick, and watching
tenderly over the two children whom she had borne to her former husband, Jean Storder, had
won the esteem of Calvin.
Many friends from a distance testified their sympathy and joy by attending his nuptials.
But why is not his Idelette de Bure by his side when he re-enters Geneva? She is to
follow, and to be the modest, loving, and noble-minded companion of the Reformer, during
nine of the most laborious and stormy years of his life. Three horses, a carriage, and a
sum of money are sent her by the Senate, to bring her to Geneva. A piece of cloth was
presented to Calvin for a gown,[10] and
the pulpit in St. Peter's was prepared for the preacher: it was fixed against a massive
pillar, and placed low, that the speaker might be distinctly audible to all.
CHAPTER 15 Back to Top
THE ECCLESIASTICAL ORDINANCES.
Assembly in the Cathedral — Calvin's Address — Resolves to Stem the Tide of
Moral Ruin — Proposal to the Council — The Ecclesiastical Ordinances Drafted
— Voted by the People — His Ecclesiastical Government — Four Orders of
Ministers — Two in Reality — The Venerable Company — Election of Pastors
— Consistory — Its Functions — The Council Punishes in the Last Resort
— The Ecclesiastical Ordinances the Laws of the State — Freely Accepted by the
People — Is this the Inquisition over again? — No — A Theocratic Republic
established at Geneva — Bungener's Defence of it.
THE first act done by Calvin and the Senate and people of
Geneva was to bow themselves in humiliation before the Eternal Sovereign. Only a day or
two after the Reformer's arrival, the great bell Clemence rung out its deep,
far-resounding peal over city, lake, and champaign. The citizens flocked to the cathedral
to hear again the voice that was dearer to them than ever.
Calvin addressed them, dwelling briefly on those awful events which gave so deep a
solemnity to the passing time. In the East the Turk was overrunning Hungary, and shedding
Christian blood in torrents. Nearer to them the Postilence was ravaging the cities of
Germany and the towns on the Rhine. In France and England their brethren were falling by
the sword of the persecutor. In Barbary, whither he had gone to fight the Moors, the
emperor's fleet and army were perishing by the tempests of the sky. The Reformer called on
them to see in these mingled events the hand of God, punishing the nations in his anger.
The Sacrament was then dispensed, and the services of the day were closed with a solemn
prayer, in which the little city, environed on every side by powerful enemies, cast itself
upon the arm of the Almighty.[1]
Without a moment's delay Calvin set about his great task. Everywhere, over the
entire face of Christendom, moral ruin was at work. The feeble restraints of the Roman
Church were dissolved. The power of the German Reformation was decaying, the Political
element having acquired the predominance. An outburst of pantheistic doctrines was about
to drown Europe in a flood of hideous immoralities and frightful disorders. What was
needed was a great moral power, strong enough to awe the atheism that was lifting up its
portentous head. This was the Herculean labor to which Calvin was called. He understood
it. In his clear, calm judgment, and constructive skill — in his powers of memory and
of logic — in a genius equally fitted for speculation or for business — in his
intellectual vision which extended wide, yet penetrated deep — in his indomitable
patience, inflexible conscientiousness, and profound submission to the Bible, he was the
one man, of all then living, who possessed the gifts necessary for the work. he would
begin by regenerating Geneva, and from Geneva as a center there would go forth a
regenerating influence over the face of Christendom. Accordingly, on his first appearance
before the Council, and before he had been many hours within their walls, he demanded the
erection of a court of morals, or ecclesiastical discipline. "Immediately after I had
offered my services to the Senate," says he, writing to Farel, "I declared that
a Church could not hold together unless a settled government should be agreed on, such as
is prescribed to us in the Word of God, and such as was in use in the ancient Church. I
requested that they would appoint certain of their number who might confer with us on the
subject. Six were then appointed."[2] The Senate's consent had, in fact, been given when it supplicated
him to return, for it well knew that he could return not otherwise than as a Reformer.
Such dispatch did Calvin and his colleagues use in this matter, that the draft of the
ecclesiastical discipline was presented to the Council on the 28th of September. Its
examination was begun and continued till the 27th of October. The project, as definitely
amended, was, on the 9th of November, adopted by the Council of Two Hundred; and on the
20th by the Council-General, or Assembly of the People. These ecclesiastical ordinances
were farther remodelled, and the final vote of the people took place on the 2nd of
January, 1542. "It is," says Bungener, "from that day that the Calvinistic
Republic legally dates."[3]
We shall briefly consider this ecclesiastical order and government, — the
inner organisation of the Reformation; — the instrument for the regeneration, first
of Geneva, next of Christendom. Calvin and the Council are seen working together in the
framing of it. The Reformer holds that the State, guiding itself by the light of
revelation, can and ought to make arrangements and laws conducive to the maintenance of
the Church of God on the earth. He at the same time made what provision the circumstances
permitted for the separate and independent working of the Church and the State, each
within its own sphere. His plan of Church order was borrowed avowedly from the New
Testament. He instituted four orders of men for the instruction and government of the
Church — the Pastor, the Doctor, the Presbyter or Elder, and the Deacon. We have here
strictly viewed but two orders — the Presbyter and the Deacon though we have four
names. The Presbyter embraces those who both preach and govern, as also others who govern
but do not preach. By the Deacon is meant the officer who administered the Church's
financial affairs.
The city clergy, the professors of theology, and the rural pastors formed the body known
as the Venerable Company. The election of pastors was conducted in the following manner:
— When a pulpit fell vacant, the Company united in a deputation to the Council. In
presence of the magistrates the ministerial candidates were subjected to a severe
examination, especially as regarded their ability to expound Holy Scripture. The
magistrates then retired, and the Company, by a majority of votes, elected one as pastor.
The newly-elected, if approved by the Council, was announced to the congregation from the
pulpit next Sunday, and the people were invited to send in their objections, if they had
any, to the magistrates. The silence of the people confirmed the election, and eight days
afterwards the new minister was ordained as pastor, the moderator of the Company presiding
at the ceremony. The triple action of the government, the people, and the clergy in the
election was a sufficient guarantee against intrigue and favor.[4]
The ecclesiastical authority was wielded by the Consistory, or tribunal of morals.
The Consistory was composed of the ministers of the city and twelve laymen. These twelve
laymen were elected by the Little Council, confirmed by the Great Council, and finally
approved by the people with whom remained the power of objecting to any or all of them if
they saw cause. The Consistory met every Thursday. It summoned before it those reported as
guilty of immoralities. It admonished them, and, unless they promised amendment,
excommunicated them — that is, deposed them from membership in the Church — and
in consequence thereof withheld from them the Sacraments. The Consistory had no power to
compel attendance before it, and no power to inflict a civil punishment. "It
was," says Ruchat, "a purely ecclesiastical chamber, possessing no civil
jurisdiction whatever, which it left entirely to the magistrate."[5] It "gives notice" to
the Council, and the Council "sees to it." In the infliction of its censures it
exercised a rigorous impartiality. It knew nothing of rank or friendship,
"punishing," says M. Gaberel, "with equal severity the highest magistrate
and the meanest burgess, the millionaire and the peasant."[6]
If the action of the Consistory effected the reformation of the offender, he was
straightway restored to his place in the Church; if he remained incorrigible, the case
came under the cognisance of the civil jurisdiction. The Council summoned him to its bar,
and inflicted punishment — it might be imprisonment, or it might be banishment. The
Spiritual Court, looking at the act as an offense against the ecclesiastical ordinances,
had visited it with an ecclesiastical censure; the Council, looking at it as a breach of
the civil laws, awarded against it a temporal punishment. We ask why this double character
of the same act? Because in Geneva the nation was the Church, and the ecclesiastical
ordinances were also the laws of the State. They had not only been enacted by the Senate,
they had been twice solemnly and unanimously voted by the people. "The people could
not afterwards allege," says M. Gaberel, "that they were deceived as to the
bearing of the laws they were sanctioning. For several weeks they could meditate at
leisure on the articles proposed; they knew the value of their decision, and when twice
— on the 20th of November, 1541, and again on the 2nd of January, 1542 — they
came to the Cathedral of St. Peter's, and, after each article, raised their hands in
acceptance of it, the vote was an affair of conscience between God and themselves, for no
human power could impose such an engagement. They were 20,000 citizens, perfectly free,
and masters of their own town. The Genevese people were absolutely sovereign; they knew no
other limit to their legislative power than their own will, and this people voted the
ordinances from the first chapter to the last. They engaged to frequent public worship
regularly, to bring up their children in the fear of the Lord, to renounce all debauchery,
all immoral amusements, to maintain simplicity in their clothing, frugality and order in
their dwellings."[7]
It is asked, is not this discipline the old regime of Rome over again? Do we not here see
an ecclesiastical court investigating and passing sentence, and a civil tribunal coming in
and carrying it out? Is not this what the Inquisition did? There are, however, essential
differences between the two cases. At Rome there was but one jurisdiction, the Pontifical;
at Geneva there were two, the ecclesiastical and the civil. At Rome simple opinions were
punishable; at Geneva overt acts only. At Rome the code was imposed by authority; at
Geneva it was freely voted by the people. If it was the Inquisition, it was the people who
set it up. But the main difference lies here: at Rome the claim of infallibility put
conscience, reason, and law out of court; at Geneva the supreme authority was the
Constitution, which had been approved and sanctioned by the free conscience of the people.
What was established at Geneva was a theocratic republic. The circumstances made any other
form of government hardly possible. The necessities of the city made it imperative that in
its legislation the moral should predominate; its very existence depended on this. But
even the genius of Calvin could not find means, in so small a State, to give free
expression to his views touching the distinction between things spiritual and things
secular, nor could he prevent the two jurisdictions at times overlapping and amalgamating.
It is strange to us to see blasphemy, unchastity, and similar acts visited with
imprisonment or with banishment; but we are to bear in mind that the citizens themselves
had made abstinence from these vices a condition of citizenship when they voted the
Constitution. They were not only offenses against morality, they were breaches of the
social compact which had been freely and unanimously formed. Those who, while the
Constitution existed — and it could not exist a moment longer than the majority
willed — claimed to be permitted these indulgences, were logically, as well as
legally, incurring expatriation. Calvin made this very plain when, on one occasion, he
advised the Libertine.to withdraw, and build a city for themselves. Such a city, verily,
would have had neither a long nor a tranquil career.
"The more this legislation has been studied," remarks M. Bungener, "the
more is it seen to be in advance of all anterior systems of legislation. The form
sometimes surprises us a little by its quaint simplicity, but the grandeur of the whole is
not the less evident to those who seek it, and this was about to manifest itself in the
history of the humble nation to whom this legislation was to give so glorious a place in
the intellectual as well as in the religious world."
"Neither absorbing nor degrading the Statue," adds M. Bungener, "the Church
maintained herself at its side, always free, so far as the Reformer had intended her to be
so. This was, indeed, an important, an indispensable element of her influence abroad. A
Church visibly in the power of the magistrates of so small a State would have been
hearkened to by none. But the Church of Geneva had been put into possession of a free and
living individuality. Henceforth it mattered little whether she was small or great, or
whether she was at home under the shelter of a small or mighty State. She was the Church
of Geneva, the heiress of Calvin. lqone in Europe, friend or foe, thought of asking
more."[8]
CHAPTER 16 Back to Top
THE NEW GENEVA.
The Ministry — The Weekly Exercise — Visiting — Calvin — His Sermons
— Studies — Correspondence — From the Centre Watches the Whole Field —
Geneva the Dwelling of a Righteous People — Calvin's Aim to make it a Model City
— Character of Calvin's Commentaries— Two Genevas — The Libertines —
Geneva becomes the Thermopyke of Christendom.
WE have surveyed only the grand outlines. To Geneva for the
reinvigoration of the Reformation, ,see the completeness and efficiency of the scheme let
us glance a moment at the details. which Calvin elaborated and set a-working in First the
ministry was cared for. To guard against the entrance of unworthy and incompetent persons
into its ranks, candidates were subjected to repeated tests and examinations previous to
ordination.
The ministry organised, arrangements were made to secure its efficiency and purity. The
pastors were to meet once a week in conference for mutual correction and improvement; each
in his turn was to expound a passage of Scripture in presence of the rest, who were to
give their opinions on the doctrine delivered in their hearing. The young were to be kept
under religious instruction till qualified by their knowledge and their age for coming to
the Communion-table. Every Friday a sermon was to be preached in St. Peter's, which all
the citizens were to attend. Once a year every family was to be visited by a minister and
elder, and once every three years a Presbyterian visitation of all the parishes of the
State was to take place. Care was also taken that the sick and the poor should be
regularly visited, and the hospitals attended to. Never before, nor since perhaps, has a
community had the good fortune to be placed under so complete and thorough a system of
moral and spiritual training. Calvin must first reform Geneva, if through Geneva he would
reform Europe.
It was a Herculean task which the Reformer had set himself. He could find no one to share
it with him. Viret and Farel could not be spared from Lausanne and Neuchatel, and it was
on his shoulders alone that the burden rested. The labors which from this time he
underwent were enormous. In addition to his Sunday duties as pastor of the parish of St.
Peter's, he preached every day of the alternate week. He delivered three theological
lectures weekly. Every Thursday he presided in the Consistory. Every Friday he gave a
public exposition in St. Peter's. He took his turn with the other ministers in the
visitation of the sick, and other pastoral duties.
When the plague was in Geneva he offered himself for the service of the hospital, but the
Council, deeming his life indispensable to the State, would not hear of his shutting
himself up with the pestilence. Day by day he pursued ]his studies without intermission.
He awoke at five o'clock; his books were brought him and, sitting up in bed, he dictated
to an amanuensis. When the hour came to mount the pulpit, he was invariably ready; and
when he returned home, he resumed, after a short rest, his literary labors. Nor was this
all. From every part of Christendom to which the Reformation had penetrated — from
Poland, Austria, Germany, and Denmark, and from the nearer lands of Switzerland, France,
and England — came letters daily to him. There were Churches to be organised,
theological questions to be solved, differences to be composed, and exigencies to be met.
The Reformer must maturely weigh all these, and counsel the action to be taken in each.
Without diminishing his rate of daily work, he found time for this immense correspondence.
Calvin had pitched his tent at the center of a great battle, and his eye ranged over the
whole field. There was not a movement which he did not direct, or a champion for whose
safety he did not care. If anywhere he saw a combatant on the point of being overborne, he
hastened to his aid; and if he descried signs of faint-heartedness, he strove to stimulate
afresh the courage of the desponding warrior, and induce him to resume the battle. The
froward he moderated, the timid he emboldened, the unskilful he instructed, and the erring
he called back. If it happened that some champion from the Roman or from the pantheistic
camp stepped forth to defy the armies of Protestantism, Calvin was ever ready to measure
swords with him. The controversy commonly was short but decisive, and the Reformed Church
usually, for some time after, had rest from all similar attacks. To those on their way to
the stake, Calvin never failed to send greeting and consolation, and the martyrs in their
turn waved their adieus to him from their scaffolds. The words, "We who are about to
die, salute thee!" which greeted the emperor in the Roman circus, were again heard,
cried by hundreds of voices, but in circumstances which gave them an ineffably greater
sublimity.
While he watched all that was passing at the remote boundary, he did not for one moment
neglect the center. He knew that so vast a plan of operations must repose on a solid
basis. Hence his incessant toil to reform the manners, enlarge the knowledge, and elevate
the piety of Geneva. He would make it the dwelling of a righteous nation. All who might
enter its gates should see, and those at a distance should hear, what that Christianity
was which he was seeking to restore to the world, and what mighty and blessed
transformations it was able to work on society. Its enemies branded it as heresy, and
cursed it as the mother of all wickedness. Come, then, was in effect Calvin's reply; come
and examine for yourselves this heresy at its head-quarters. Mark the dens of profligacy
and crime rooted out, the habits of idleness and beggary suppressed, the noise of
blasphemy and riot extinguished! And with what have they been replaced? Contemplate those
nurseries of art, those schools of letters, those workshops where industry plies its
honest calling, those homes which are the abode of love, those men of learning rising up
to adorn the State, and those patriots ready to defend it. Blessed heresy that yields such
fruits! It was this — a great living proof of the Gospel's transforming power —
that Calvin had in view to create in all his labors, whether in his study, or in his
chair, or in the pulpit.
And in enlightening Geneva he enlightened Christendom; in instructing his contemporaries
he taught, at the same time, the men of after-ages. Though. his pen produced much, it sent
forth nothing that was not fully ripened. His writings, though composed in answer to the
sudden challenge of some adversary, or to meet an emergency that had unexpectedly arisen,
or to fulfill the call of daily duty, bear traces neither of haste nor of immaturity; on
the contrary, they are solid, terse, ever to the point, and so fraught with great
principles, set forth with lucidity and beauty, that even at this day, after the lapse of
three centuries, during which the works of numberless authors have sunk into oblivion,
they are still widely read, and are acting powerfully on the mind of Christendom. As an
expositor of Scripture, Calvin is still without a rival. His Commentaries embrace the
whole of the Old and New Testaments, with the exception of the Apocalypse; but though the
track is thus vast which his mind and pen have traversed, what a flood of light has he
contrived' to shed throughout it all! How penetrating, yet how simple; how finely
exegetical, yet how thoroughly practical; how logical in thought, yet how little
systematic in form are his interpretations of the Holy Oracles! Nor is the unction his
Commentary breathes its least excellence. Its spirit is that of the Bible itself; its
fragrance is of heaven, and the reader's soul is refreshed with the celestial air that he
is inhaling.
We now behold Calvin at his post, and we hang with intense interest upon the issue of his
experiment. The question is not merely shall he protestantise Geneva, but shall he
extricate the Reformation from its dead-lock; restore it to its spiritual path; and,
having developed it into new rigor and soundness in Geneva, plant it out in other
countries. For five years all went smoothly, nothing occurred to obstruct the regular
working of the spiritual and intellectual machinery he had set a-going in this little but
wisely-selected territory. The fruits were appearing. "By the blessing of God on the
labors of Calvin," says Ruchat, "the Church of Geneva put on a new face."[1] But the Libertinism of Geneva
had been scorched, not killed.
In 1546, it again lifted up its head, and the struggle was renewed. There were, in fact,
two Genevas: there was the religious and orderly Geneva, composed of the native disciples
of the Gospel, the foreign refugees of Protestantism, and the youth of various
nationalities here training under Calvin to bear the banner of the Reformation in the face
of fire and sword through all parts of Europe; and there was the infidel and the
disorderly Geneva, a small but ominous band, the pioneers in their beliefs and in their
practices of those bodies which afterwards at various intervals filled Popish Christendom
with their swarms, and made themselves a terror by the physical and moral horrors that
marked their career.
"One day, in the large hall of the Cloisters, behind the cathedral, Calvin was giving
his lecture on divinity. Around his chair hundreds were thronging, and amongst them
numbers of future preachers and of future martyrs. Suddenly they hear outside laughter,
cries, and a great clamore: This proceeds from fifteen or twenty Libertines, who, out of
hatred to Calvin, are giving a specimen of their manners, and of what they call liberty.
"Such is the picture of the two Genevas. One of the two must necessarily
perish."[2]
Among the Libertines, however, there were two classes. There was the class of which
we have just had a specimen, and there was a class of a much less malignant and dangerous
kind. The latter was composed of the old families of Geneva. They loved to dance, to
masquerade, to play.
Hating the moral restraints which the new Constitution imposed upon them, they raised the
cry that the ancient charters had been subverted, and that liberty was in danger. The
other party joined in this cry, but under it they meditated far deeper designs than their
confederates. Their aim was to root out the belief of a God, and so pull down all the
fences of order, and dissolve all the obligations of morality. Both united against Calvin.
In Wittemberg, the battle of Protestantism had been against Romanism; in Geneva, it was
against Romanism and pantheism combined. Two hosts were now in arms, and their victory
would have been equally fatal to Rome and to Geneva. In fact, what we behold at this
crisis is an uprising of old paganism. Its Protean vices, the austere and the gay, and its
multiform creeds, the superstitious and the pantheistic, are marshalled in one mighty army
to overwhelm the Gospel, and devastate the kingdoms of Europe. Geneva must be the
Thermopylae of Christendom.
CHAPTER 17 Back to Top
CALVIN'S BATTLES WITH THE LIBERTINES.
Pierre Ameaux — His Wife — The Spiritual Libertines — A Public Confession
— Jacques Gruet — An Execution — Practical Reforms — Amy Perrin —
his Ambition — Francois Favre — Madame Perrin Imprisoned — Rage of the
Favre Family — The Law Triumphs — The Disorders Renewed — Calvin's
Appearance before the Council — His Magnanimity — Peace Restored — Calvin
meanwhile Labours indefatigably — Growing Renown of Geneva — The Favres again
"Lift up the Horn " — Perrin made First Syndic — Personal Outrages on
Calvin — Comparison between Luther and Calvin in their Sufferings — Sublimity of
Calvin — His Wife, Idelette de Bure, Dies.
THE battle lasted nine years, and during all that time Calvin
"guided Geneva as a vessel on fire, which burns the captain's feet, and yet obeys
him."[1] It
began in the following way: — Pierre Ameaux was a maker of playing-cards by trade,
and a member of the Council of Two Hundred. In 1546, his wife was cited before the
Consistory "for several monstrous propositions." She had given herself up to the
grossest immorality on principle. "It is in this sense," she said — and in
this she spoke the common sentiments of the spiritual Libertines — "we ought to
take the communion of saints, spoken of in the Apostles' Creed; for this communion can
never be perfect till all things are common among the faithful — goods, houses, and
body." From the Consistory, Madame Ameaux passed to the Council, which sent her to
prison. Her husband, from whom she had learned these doctrines, saw himself condemned in
his wife's condemnation. Besides, he had a grudge at Calvin, who had injured his trade by
forbidding card-playing. One night, when merry at supper, he said to his friends that
"his religion was the true religion, whereas Calvin's religion was deceit and
tyranny, and that the magistrates who supported him were traitors."[2] On the words being reported to
the Council, Ameaux was compelled to apologise. Calvin deemed this a too lenient sentence
for an offense that struck at the fundamental settlement of the State. He demanded that
the Council should inflict a more adequate punishment, or put himself and the other
ministers on their trial. The Council, who were resolved to uphold the moral discipline,
cancelled their first sentence, and pronounced a second and harder one. They adjudged
Pierre Ameaux to walk through the streets bareheaded, carrying a lighted candle, and to
make confession of his fault on his knees. The anger of the Libertines was great. A few
days after, knowing that Calvin was in the pulpit, they rushed into the church and made a
disturbance. The Council, feeling that with the Gospel must fall the republic, set up a
gibbet in the Place St. Gervais. The hint was understood and respected.
In the following year (1547) events of greater consequence occurred. One day a paper was
found affixed to the pulpit of St. Peter's, full of abuse of the ministers, and
threatening them with death.[3] Suspicion
fell on Jacques Gruet, who had been seen loitering about the cathedral. From a canon in
the Roman Church, Gruet had passed to the ranks of the Libertines, to whose principles his
notorious profligacy did honor. The Council arrested him. A domiciliary visit brought to
light another trait of his character, which until then was unknown, save to his more
intimate friends. His shorn head had not prevented him becoming an infidel, and an infidel
of a very malignant type. Certain writings, his own composition, breathing an envenomed
hatred of Christ, were discovered in his house. A clue, moreover, was there found to a
correspondence tending to deliver up Geneva to the duke. The billet affixed to the pulpit
was forgotten in the graver discoveries to which it led. Gruet confessed his guilt, and
was condemned and beheaded.[4]
The Council maintained its ground in presence of the Libertines. So far from
receding in the way of relaxing the moral code, it advanced in the path of practical
reformation. It closed the taverns; it placed under surveillance certain places in the
city where jovial parties were wont to assemble; it forbade the baptising of infants by
the names of Popish saints, a practice which was understood to be a manifesto against the
Protestant rule; and it prohibited the performance of the Acts of the Apostles, a comedy
designed, its patrons alleged, for the edifying of the people, but which, in the opinion
of the Council, profaned the Word of God, and wasted the public money, "which it were
better to expend on the necessities of the poor Protestant refugees with which Geneva was
now beginning to be filled." These decided measures only inflamed the rage of the
Libertines.[5]
This party now found a leader in an unexpected quarter. We have already mentioned
the name of Amy Perrin. Six years before, he had gone all the way to Strasburg to prevail
on Calvin to resume his place at Geneva. But he was not to remain always by the side of
the Reformer. Perrin was irascible in temper, frivolous in manners, a lover of fetes and
magnificent dresses, and as ambitious of power as he was devoid of the talents for
exercising it. He aped, in Geneva, the part of Caesar at Rome; but Calvin saw that his
vein fitted him for the comic rather than the heroic, and styled him at times "Caesar
the Comedian." He had been raised, by the voice of the people, to the chief military
command in the republic, he was thus not without the means of aiding his party, and of
damaging his opponents.
The wife of Perrin was the daughter of Francois Favre, who was now closing a life that had
been not unprofitable to the State, with an old age of shameless immorality. His
flagrancies compelled the notice of the Council. His daughter, Madame Perrin, gave a ball,
by way of showing how little she regarded either Consistory or Senate. This was a
transgression of the ecclesiastical ordinances. All concerned in the affair, including one
of the syndics, were summoned before the Consistory. Only two, of whom Perrin was one,
acknowledged their fault; the rest set the Ecclesiastical Court at open defiance, and, in
accordance with the constitutional law and practice, were summoned before the Council, and
ordered to prison.
Madame Perrin was among the incarcerated. Her rage knew no bounds; and what added to it
was the circumstance of her father being imprisoned about the same time for
"debauchery and adultery." The humiliation of the family of Favre was now
complete, and their indignation was fierce in proportion. They loudly demanded the
abolition of the ecclesiastical laws, and denounced Calvin as bringing back, under another
name, the tyranny of the Roman Church.[6] The captain-general, Perrin, took the part of his wife and his
father-in-law, and used all his influence both in the Council and in the city against
Calvin.
The party increased in numbers and in audacity. They demanded that the Council should
strip the Consistory of the power to excommunicate, and take it into its own hands. They
hoped, no doubt, that in the hands of the Council excommunication would remain a dead
letter, and thus the mainspring of the Calvinistic discipline would be broken.
Calvin saw how much was at stake, and resolved to continue the battle till he should fall
at his post or be driven from it. With him it was no trial of strength between himself and
the Favre family, which of the two had the greater influence in Geneva, and which should
bow the head before the other. The question to be decided was whether the Reformation, in
its re-invigorated spiritual phase, should be propagated over Europe or be trampled
underfoot by Genevan Libertinism. If it was to spread to other countries, its purity and
rigour must be maintained at all hazards in Geneva, its center. It was from this calm
elevation that Calvin surveyed the struggle. Writing to Farel, he says: "I told them
that so long as they were in Geneva, they should strive in vain to cast off obedience to
the laws; for were there as many diadems in the house of the Favres as frenzied heads,
that that would be no barrier-to the Lord being superior."[7]
As Calvin had foretold, so it happened: the law held its course. The Favres had to
digest their humiliation as best they could; the law knew no distinction between them and
the lowest citizen.
The battle, however, was not ended; nay, it grew still fiercer. Geneva became yet more
divided and demoralised. On the 12th December, 1547, we find the pastors going to the
H'tel de Ville "to show that a great deal of insolence, debauchery, dissoluteness,
and hatred was prevalent, to the ruin of the State." On the 16th December the Council
of Two Hundred met to discuss the measures to be taken. The contention was so hot, and the
threats uttered against the pastors, and especially against Calvin, were so violent, that
their friends ran to beg the ministers not to appear that day before the Council. Calvin
proceeded to the H'tel de Ville alone. An excited crowd was gathered at the door of the
Council-hall. "I cast myself," says Calvin, "into the thickest of the
crowd. I was pulled to and fro by those who wished to save me from harm." But he
adds, "The people shrank from harming me as they would from the murder of a
father."[8] Passing
through the crowd, Calvin entered the Council-chamber.
There fresh combats awaited him. On his entrance the cries grew louder, and swords were
unsheathed. He advanced undismayed, stood in the midst of them, and looked round on the
scowling faces and naked swords. All were silent. "I know," said Calvin,
addressing the members of the Council, "that I am the primary cause of these
divisions and disturbances." The silence grew yet more profound, and the Reformer
proceeded: "If it is my life you desire, I am ready to die. If it is my banishment
you wish, I shall exile myself. If you desire once more to save Geneva without the Gospel,
you can try." This challenge brought the Council to their senses. It recalled the
memory of the disorders that had made it necessary to implore the interposition of the
very man they were now seeking to drive away, to save the republic when on the brink of
ruin. The recollection cooled the most irritated spirits present. A republic, of course,
could bestow the title of king upon no one; but all felt that the man before them, though
he had no crown, was in reality a king. He wore his pastor's cloak right royally, and
looked more august than monarch in his robes of state. His magnanimity and wisdom procured
him a submission that could not have been more instant or more profound though he had
carried scepter and sword. Peace was established between the two parties, and Calvin, in
prospect of the Communion at the approaching Christmas, held out his hand to Perrin.[9] The members of Council, holding
up their right hands, signified their desire that past feuds should be buried, and in
token of reconciliation a banquet took place at the town-hall.[10]
But the Reformer cherished no delusive hopes: he knew that between parties so
diametrically divided in principle there could be no lasting truce. The storm had lulled,
but all through the year 1548 it continued to mutter. In the midst of these tempests, his
pen was not for a moment idle. His genius, with concentrated power, continued to produce
and send forth those defences and expositions of the Protestant system which were so
mightily useful in extending the Reformation and building it up in other lands, and which,
year by year, lifted higher into the world's view, and invested with a greater glory, that
city from which they emanated, although a powerful faction was seeking to expel from it
the man who was its strength and glory. Not a week which might not be Calvin's last in
Geneva. And yet when men spoke of that valorous little State, growing day by day in
renown, it was Calvin of whom they thought; and when the elite of other countries, the
most enlightened and scholarly men in Europe, some of them of the highest rank, flocked to
its gates, it was to see Calvin, to enjoy Calvin's society, and to share Calvin's
instructions.
Again the storm darkened. The house of Favre, which had been compelled to "lower the
head" in 1547, once more "lifted up the horn" in 1549. In the end of 1548,
Perrin, Favre's son-in-law, was restored to his place in the Council, and to his office of
"Captain-General," of both of which he had been deprived. Restored to office and
honors, he so ingratiated himself with the citizens that early in 1549 he was elected to
the Syndicate, and, contrary to custom, was made First Syndic. This gave fresh courage to
his party. It was now that the tide of popular contumely and derision around the Reformer
rose to the full. The hero of the Libertine populace — "the pillars of the
Tavern," as Farel called them when addressing the Council during a visit which he
made about this time to Geneva — was, of course, Captain Perrin, the First Syndic. To
ingratiate themselves with Perrin was an easy matter indeed; they had only to do what
already they were but too well disposed to do — indulge their spite against the
Reformer. They hit upon a method of annoyance which, doubtless, they thought very clever,
but which was only very coarse. They called their dogs by the name of Calvin. At times, to
make the insult more stinging, they pronounced the word as Cain.[11] Those who could not indulge
themselves in this ingenious and pleasant pastime, not being the owners of a mastiff,
could nevertheless as they passed the Reformer hiss or put out the tongue. Such were the
affronts to which Calvin at this time was daily subjected, and that too from men who owed
to him the very liberty which they abused: men whose city he was making illustrious all
over Europe, and the streets of which, the moment he should cease to tread them, would
become the scene of internecine carnage. Verily, it was no easy matter for Calvin to
endure all this, and preserve his consciousness of greatness. To pass from the sublime
labors of his study to such revilings as awaited him out-of-doors was like passing into
another sphere of being. This was a depth of persecution into which Luther had never been
called to descend.
Opposition Luther had encountered, peril he had known, death he had confronted, but
respect had ever waited upon his person, and his sufferings had ever in them an element of
greatness that alleviated their pain. But Calvin, while equally with Luther an object of
hatred to the great, was also the scoff of the base. But he bore all the fierce threats of
men who occupied thrones or stood at the head of armies, and the ribald jest and hiss of
the poor Libertine by his side — with equal equanimity. He remembered that a Greater
had been "the song of the drunkard," and that he was but treading a path which
Blessed feet had trodden before him. With a sublime grandeur of soul, which laudation
could not enhance, and which the basest contumely could not degrade, he purged off these
foul accretions, maintained the lofty mood of his mind, and went on in the performance of
his mighty task.
It was not possible, one would think, that the sky could grow darker above Calvin; and yet
darker it did become. He whom we see already so sorely stricken is to be yet more deeply
wounded. All these years Idelette de Bure had been by his side. Tender of heart,
magnanimous of soul, loving, confiding, constant, she soothed her husband in his trials,
watched by his sick-bed, exercised hospitality to his friends and numerous visitors, or in
her closet prayed, while Calvin was being assailed by the ribald insults and outrages of
the street. The love and entire devotion of his wife was among his chief joys. But, alas!
her frail and delicate health gave way under the pressure of a protracted illness, and
.early in 1549, Idelette de Bure died. "Oh, glorious resurrection!" were her
last words. "God of Abraham and of all our fathers, not one of the faithful who have
hoped in thee, for so many ages, has been disappointed; I also will hope."[12] These short sentences were
rather ejaculated than distinctly spoken. "Truly mine is no common source of
grief," said her husband writing to Viret; "I have been bereaved of the best
companion of my life, of one who, had it been so ordered, would have been not only the
willing sharer of my indigence, but even of my death. During her life she was the faithful
helper of my ministry." But we drop the curtain, as Calvin himself did, on his great
sorrow.
CHAPTER 18 Back to Top
CALVIN'S LABORS FOR UNION.
Misfortunes of Protestantism in Germany—Death of Paul III.—Election of Julius
III.—The Conclave—Jubilee—The Golden Hammer—Francis I. Dies—Henry
II.—He Looks Two Ways at Once—Calvin Turns with Hope to England—Edward VI.
on the Throne—What Calvin Judged Necessary for England's
Reformation—Scotland—Spain—Philip II.—All Things being
Shaken—Calvin's Labors for the Union of the Church— The Eucharist the Point of
Division—Zwingli's and Calvin's Views— They are Substantially One—The
Consensus Tigurinis—Its Teaching Accepted by Switzerland, France, and
England—Germany Stands Aloof—Theodore Beza Arrives at Geneva—His Youth and
Studies— Becomes Calvin's Associate in Labor—Distinguished Group around
Calvin—Outer and Wider Group—The Man at the Center.
DURING these years, while an abyss was opening at Geneva, the
grave, as it seemed, of Calvin and his work, the battle was going against the Reformation
all over Europe. Luther was sleeping in the Schloss-kirk, and the arms of the emperor were
overrunning Protestant Germany. The theological school at Wittenberg was broken up; the
Schmalkald League was dissolved, and its two chiefs, the captives of Charles, were being
carried about in chains, in the wake of the emperor. The Interim had replaced the
Confession of Augsburg, the Protestant ministers had been driven away, and their flocks
scattered; the free cities had capitulated, and in many of them the mass was being
substituted for the sermon. The noble edifice which the hands of Luther had reared
appeared to be falling into ruins. He who was to become Philip II., but who had not yet
assumed the title, or opened his career of blood, was making a progress through the towns
of Flanders, in company of his father; and the emperor, in the hope of perpetuating his
mighty despotism, was exacting from the cities of the Low Countries an oath of allegiance
to Philip.[1]
In Italy, Paul III., the worthy successor of Borgia, had just died (1549), and his feet,
extended through an iron grating, had been duly kissed by the Roman populace. All Rome was
yet ringing with a terrible book which had just been published, containing the life of the
defunct Pope, when the cardinals assembled in that city to elect his successor, the
ceremony usual on such occasions being carefully observed. Duly morning by morning each
cardinal came from his darkened chamber, with its solitary taper, and after mass and
prayer, wrote the name of the person for whom he gave his vote upon a bit of paper, and
folding it up, dropped it into the silver chalice upon the crimson-covered table before
the altar of the chapel. This was repeated day by day, till a majority of two-thirds of
the votes were recorded in favor of one candidate. Our own Cardinal Pole was just on the
point of being elected, but the suspicion of Lutheranism which attached to him, caused him
the misfortune or the happiness of missing the tiara. On the 7th of February, 1550, [2] John Maria de Monte, who had
presided in the Council at Trent, and afterwards at Bologna, when the cardinals crossed
the mountains, was elected, and ascended the Papal chair under the title of Julius III. It
was the year of Jubilee, for although, when first instituted by Boniface VIII., A.D. 1300,
that great festival was ordained to be held only on the first year of each century, the
period had since been shortened, and the Jubilee came round once every half-century. Paul
III. had earnestly desired to see that great day of grace, but the grave closed over him
before it came. That festival was reserved to signalize the opening of his successor's
Pontificate. Rome was full of pilgrims from all countries, who had come to share in the
inestimable benefits which the year of Jubilee brings with it to the faithful. Two days
after his election, Julius III., with the golden hammer in his hand, proceeded to the
golden gate, and broke it open, that the imprisoned flood of celestial virtues and
blessings might freely flow forth and regale the expectant and rejoicing pilgrims.
The golden hammer, with which the new Pope had broken open the gate— ever a
much-coveted treasure—was this year bestowed on the Bishop of Augsburg. On being
jocularly interrogated by some of his friends what use he meant to make of the gift, the
bishop replied "that he intended to knock the Lutherans on the head with that
hammer."[3] The
other pilgrims carried back to their distant homes, as the record of the cost and toil of
their journey, besides the forgiveness of their sins, "bits of the lime and
rubbish" of the demolished gate, to be kept as "precious jewels."[4]
Francis I. of France had gone to the grave. Literature, war, gallantry, had engaged
him by turns. Today he snubbed the monks, tomorrow he burned the Lutherans. The last years
of his reign were disgraced by the horrible massacre of the Vaudois of Provence, and
embittered by the painful disease, the result of his vices, which carried him to the grave
in his fifty-fifth year. His son, Henry II., brought to the throne, which he now filled,
all the evil qualities of his father, and only some of the good ones. He was the husband
of Catherine de Medici, Pope Clement VII.'s niece, but the wife was the real sovereign.
The Protestant princes of Germany, with Maurice of Saxony at their head, besought his aid
in the war they were then waging with the emperor, Charles V. He entered into alliance
with them, but before setting out for the campaign he lighted up his capital with the
lurid blaze of Lutheran martyr-piles. This was his way of notifying to the world that if
he was the enemy of the emperor, he was nevertheless the friend of the Pope; and that if
he was the confederate of the German Protestants in arms, he was not a partaker with them
in heresy.[5] In
the direction of France, then, there was no clearing of the sky. The air was thick with
tempest, which in coming years was to strew the soil of that land with more terrible
wrecks than any that had as yet disfigured it.
The only quarter of the heaven to which the eye of Calvin could turn with any pleasure was
England. There, during the years we speak of, there was a gleam of sunshine. Henry VIII.
now slept in "dull cold marble." His "sweet and gracious" son, Edward
VI., succeeded him. The clouds that had overhung the realm during all the reign of the
father, and which let fall, at times, their tempests, and ever and anon threatened to
burst in more furious storms, were dispersed by the benign rule of the son. With Edward
VI. on the throne, the Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector of the Kingdom, in the Cabinet,
and Archbishop Cranmer in the Church, the Reformation of England was advancing at a rate
that promised to give it precedence of both France and Germany, and make its Church one of
the bright stars in the heavens of Protestantism. The counsel of Calvin was sought by the
Protector and the Primate, and the frankness, as well as fidelity, with which it was
given, shows the interest the Reformer took in the Church of England, and the hopes he
rested on its Reformation. In his letter to Somerset, June, 1548, he expounds his views on
the transformation needed to be wrought on England. First, it must adopt the principle,
the only fruitful one, of justification by faith; secondly, this principle, in order to
become fruitful, must thoroughly permeate the people, which could only be by living and
powerful preaching; thirdly, the Word of God must be the rule as regards what is to be
retained and what abolished, otherwise the Reformation is not the work of God, but the
work of man, and would come to nothing; and fourthly, means must be taken for reducing
morals into harmony with faith. After the fall of the Protector, Calvin corresponded with
the young monarch, who, notwithstanding the loss of his able and faithful adviser,
continued to prosecute vigorously the Reformation of his kingdom. The seed sown by
Wicliffe two centuries before was springing rapidly up, and promised an abundant harvest.
But the clouds were to return after the rain.
The young prince went to his grave. With Mary came a swift and terrible reaction. The
Reformers of the previous reign became the martyrs of the succeeding one, and a night
thick with gloom and lurid with fire closed in once more around the realm of England.
Scotland was awakening. The stakes of Hamilton and Wishart had already lighted up its
skies. But its Reformation was too little advanced, and the country too remote, to fix the
eye of the great Reformer. John Knox had not yet crossed the sea, or entered the gates of
Geneva, to sit at Calvin's feet, and on his return continue in his native land the work
which Calvin had begun in Geneva. But Scotland was not to be veiled for ever in the
northern mist, and the yet denser shadow of Papal superstition. The Gospel, that mighty
mother of civilization, was to enter it, and lead thither her fair daughters, letters,
science, arts, and liberty. The culture which Rome failed to give it, Scotland was to
receive from Geneva.
We turn for a moment to Spain. Worn with toil and care, and sick of grandeur, Charles was
about to lay down the Empire. Fortune, like a fickle maiden, had deserted him, so he
complained, for younger soldiers. He would show that he could bear the slight, by turning
his back on a world which was turning its back on him. He made partition of his goods. The
magnificent Empire of Spain was to be given to his son Phililp. This man was fated to
develop into a Nero. this little finger was to be bigger than his father's loins. The
astute ambition of Charles, the sanguinary violence of Henry, the ferocious bigotry of
Francis, were all to be forgotten in the monstrous combination of cruelty, bigotry, and
blood which was about to reveal itself to the world in Philip II. Alas for the
Protestantism of Spain! It was to have ten brief years of flourishing, and when about to
"shake with fruit," and fill the realm of Iberia, it was to be mowed down by the
scythe of the Inquisition, and garnered in the burning-grounds of Valladolid, of Madrid,
of Seville, and of other cities.
As the great chief of Protestantism looked from his narrow foot-hold, he beheld around him
a world groaning and travailing in pain to be delivered from the bondage of the old, and
admitted into the liberty of the new. All Christendom was in agony. The kingdoms were
moved; monarchs were falling; there was distress of nations; the sea and the waves
roaring. But Calvin knew that these were but the shaking of those things which are
destined to be removed, in order that those things which cannot be removed may be
introduced. If the old was passing away, it was the more necessary to lay the foundations
of that kingdom which was to long outlast the Empire of Charles and of Francis, and to
stretch its scepter to tribes and nations which theirs had never reached. It was now that
he engaged in attempts to promote the union of the Church.
In the great and blessed work of union Calvin began at home. His first aim was to unite
the Churches of Geneva and Zurich. In prosecuting this endeavor, however, he studied to
frame such a basis of agreement as might afterwards serve as a platform for a greater
union. His aims reached forth to the Lutherans of Germany, whom he wished to comprehend in
visible fellowship with the Churches of France and England, and so draw together into one
body all the Churches of Protestantism. His hopes of ultimately reaching this grand result
were strengthened when he reflected that the Churches were divided mainly by one
point—a misunderstanding touching the Lord's Supper. There is a real presence of
Christ in the Eucharist, said they all; but they differed in their answer to the question,
In what manner is he present? He is present bodily, said Luther, who attributed ubiquity
or indefinite extension to our Lord's humanity. So far from a bodily presence, said
Zwingli, the Eucharist is only a memorial and sign of Christ. No, said Calvin, it is more;
it is a seal as well as a sign.
So stood the matter; and such, in brief, were the distinctive opinions of the three
clusters of Protestant Churches, when Calvin, rousing himself from his great sorrow for
Idelette, and setting out with Farel in the fine spring days of 1549, arrived in Zurich to
confer with the ministers there—the first step toward the rallying of the whole
protestant Church around its one standard, the Bible; and its centralization in its one
Head, even Christ. A far longer way would the Reformer have been willing to go, if it
could have promoted the cause on which his heart was so deeply set. "I am ready to
cross ten seas,"hie wrote to Cranmer, "for the union of the Church."
Between the views of Calvin and those of Zwingli on the Eucharist there was really, after
all, no essential difference. Zwingli indeed, by way of removing himself to the farthest
distance from Rome, and of getting rid of all her unintelligible mysticism on that head,
had called the Eucharist an "empty sign "—that is, a sign not filled by the
material body of Christ.
But Zwingli's teaching regarding the Lord's Supper logically covers all that Calvin held.
It is the "commemoration" of Christ's death, said Zwingli, but the character and
significance of that "commemoration" are determined by the character and
significance of the event commemorated. Christ's death was a death endured for mankind,
and is the ground on which God bestows the benefits of the New Covenant. When, therefore,
we commemorate that death, we do an act, not of simple remembrance, or mere commemoration,
but of appropriation. We express by this commemoration our acceptance of the benefits of
the New Covenant, and we receive the Eucharist as God's attesting sign or seal of his
bestowal of these benefits upon us: and in so doing we have real communion with Christ,
and a real participation in all the blessings of his death. "Christ," said
Calvin, "unites us with himself in one life."
These were substantially the explanations put before the Pastors of Zurich by Calvin. The
conference, which was held in the presence of the Civic Council, continued several days. A
formulary was drawn up, known as the Consensus Tigurinis, or Zurich Confession,[6] on which the Churches of Geneva
and Zurich united. This Confession was afterwards subscribed by all the Churches of
Helvetia and of the Grisons. It was communicated to the Reformed in France, and to Bucer
in England, and in both countries was hailed with joy. The faithful in Switzerland,
France, and England had now been brought to be of one mind on the doctrine of the
Eucharist; their union had been virtually established, and Calvin was comforted after his
great sorrow.[7]
But the greater union Calvin was not to see. The Lutherans of Germany still held
aloof, and the Protestant world still continued to present the appearance as of two
armies. Melancthon, as the result of his interview with the Reformer at Worms (1540), had
come into somewhat close agreement with Calvin on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. The
Consensus of Zurich, he acknowledged, shed a yet clearer light on the question, and had
brought him still nearer to the Genevan Reformer.[8]
But the more zealous spirits of the party, such as Flaccius, Osiander, and
especially Westphal, clung to the consubstantiation of Luther with even greater tenacity
than when its great expounder was alive, and both Melancthon and Calvin saw with sorrow a
union, which would have closed a source of weakness in the Protestant ranks, and made
patent to the whole world the real Catholicism of the Reformation, postponed to a day that
has not even yet fully come.
We have seen one companion fall by the side of the Reformer, we are now to see another
raised up to fill the vacant place. Within a month after the death of Idelette de Bure,
eight French gentlemen, whom persecution had driven from their native land, arrived at the
gates of Geneva. One of them, in particular, was distinguished by his noble mien and
polished manners. Calvin recognised in him an acquaintance of his youthful years. This was
Theodore Beza, of Vezelay, in Burgundy. Beza had enjoyed the instructions of Melchior
Wolmar, first at Orleans, and next at Bourges, and he had acquired from him, not only a
knowledge of Greek, but some taste for the Reformed doctrine, which, however, was overlaid
for the time by a gay and worldly spirit. Not unlike to Calvin's had been his course of
study. His first devotion was law; but his genius inclined him more to the belles lettres.
He was a great admirer of the Latin poets, he read them much, and composed verses in
imitation of them. After the manner of the times he followed his models somewhat too
freely, and his Popish chroniclers have taken occasion, from the lascivious phrases of his
verse, to assail his life, which, however, they have never been able to prove to have been
other than pure. His uncle procured him a living in the Church, and to preserve himself
from the vices into which others had fallen, he contracted a private marriage, in the
presence of Laurence de Normandie and Jean Crespin. An illness, which brought him to the
brink of the grave, awoke his conscience, and now it was that the religious impressions
which his early preceptor had made upon him revived.
Brought back from the grave, Beza renounced Popery, openly avowed his marriage, quitted
France, and setting out for Geneva, presented himself, as we have seen, before Calvin. He
discharged for a short time the office of Greek professor and theological lecturer at
Lausanne. Returning to Geneva, he became from 1552 the right hand of Calvin, for which his
talents, his eloquence, his energy, and his courage admirably fitted him; and when the
great chief of the Reformation was laid in the grave, no worthier than Beza could be found
to succeed him.
Beza did not stand alone by the side of Calvin. A brilliant group was now gathering round
the Reformer, composed of men some of whom were of illustrious birth, others of
distinguished scholarship, or of great talent, or of venerable piety. Among them may be
mentioned Galeaceo Caracciolo, Marquis of Vico, who had forsaken house and lands, wife and
children, for the Gospel's sake; and Peter Martyr Vermili, whom Calvin called the
"Miracle of Italy."[9] But
the exiles are to be counted, not in hundreds only, but in thousands, of whom there scarce
was one but contributed to brighten, by his rank, or genius, or learning, that galaxy of
glory which was gathering round Geneva. Each brought his stone to that intellectual and
spiritual edifice which was rising on the shores of the Leman.
Others there were, nearer or farther off, who acknowledged in Calvin their center, and
who, though parted from him and from one another by mountains and oceans, formed one
society, of which this sublime spirit was the center. There was Melancthon, and the group
of which he was the chief, and who, although they bore the name of Lutheran, felt that
they were in spirit one with those who were styled Reformed, and especially with the
Catholic-hearted man who stood at their head. There was Bullinger in Zurich, and the group
around him, which embraced, among many others, Pellicanus, and the fervent, loving
Musculus. There was the peace-loving Bucer in England, and John 'a Lasco, the learned and
accomplished Pole.[10] And
among the men of those days, who looked up to Calvin and sought his counsel, we must
likewise rank the young monarch and the venerable Primate of England. There were the
Turretinis of Italy, and the Colignys of France, representative men. There were Margaret,
Queen of Navarre, her great daughter Jeanne d'Albret, and Renee, Duchess of Ferrara.[11] There were thousands and
thousands, humble in station but elevated in character, spread over all countries and
speaking many tongues, but forgetting diversity of country, of rank, and of speech, in the
cause that made them all of one heart and one mind. We behold in this great multitude a
refined, an intellectual, a holy fellowship, than which there never perhaps existed
sublimer on earth. Verily, the man who formed the center of this brilliant assemblage, who
kept his place in the presence of so many men so dignified in rank and so powerful in
intellect; whom all confessed to be first, and whom all loved and reverenced as a father,
must have been, whatever his enemies may affirm to the contrary, a man of many sides. He
must have possessed varied as well as great qualities; he must have been large of heart,
and catholic in sentiment and sympathy; he must have been rich in deep, tender, and loving
sensibilities, though these may often have been repressed by labor or veiled by sorrow,
and could be seen only by those who stood near to him; while those who were farther off
could but mark the splendor of those gifts that shone in him as the Reformer, and of which
the world was continually receiving new proofs, in the expositions and defences of
Protestant truth, which he was almost daily sending forth. But whether near or afar off,
all who stood around the Reformer, from the inner-most to the most distant circle, were
ever ready to confess that he was as inflexible in principle as he was colossal in
intellect, that he was as unselfish in aim as he was grand in conception, and as untiring
in patience as he was unconquerable in energy and courage.
CHAPTER 19 Back to Top
SERVETUS COMES TO GENEVA AND IS ARRESTED.
Toleration—Servetus's Birth—Genius—Studies—Commission to Reform all
Religions—Malignant Attacks on Christianity—Publishes his Restitution of
Christianity—Sends the Book to Calvin—Its Doctrine Pantheism—Servetus
Condemned to Death at Vienne—Escapes—Comes to Geneva—Is Imprisoned—His
Indictment drawn by Calvin— Haughtiness of his Defence—Servetus and Calvin face
to face— Indecencies and Blasphemies against Christianity—The Question at
Geneva, Shall it be a Pantheistic Republic ruled by Servetus, or a Theocracy ruled by
Calvin?
WE now come within the shadow of a great tragedy. But the
horror which the act we are about to narrate awakens is, in truth, a homage to
Protestantism. If a deed which not only called forth no condemnation from the age in which
it was done, a few personal enemies of Calvin excepted, but which, on the contrary, was
pronounced by the best and most enlightened men then living to be just and necessary,
awakens our abhorrence—that abhorrence is, in fact, the measure of our advance in
toleration since the sixteenth century. But it is Protestantism that we have to thank for
that advance.
It is the melancholy and tragic story of Servetus which we are now to record. Michael
Servetus [1] was
a Spaniard, born in the same year as Calvin, 1509. Nature had endowed him with a lively
but fantastic genius, an active but illogical mind, an inordinate ambition, and a
defective judgment.[2] He
studied with characteristic versatility law, divinity, physic, and some have said
astrology. After a short but distinguished career as a lecturer on the physical sciences
in Paris,[3] he
ultimately established himself at Vienne, in Dauphine, as a medical practitioner.[4] In this profession he discovered
superior skill, and in his first work, On the Errors of the Trinity (1531), he anticipated
the great discovery of our own Harvey of the circulation of the blood.[5] His mind, speculative, daring,
lawless, of the scholastic rather than the Reformation type, followed its bent, which was
ethical, not physical.
He spent fully twenty years of his life in wandering up and down in Christendom, visiting
Germany, Italy, Switzerland, venting his fancies and reveries, unsettling the minds of
men, and offending every one he came in contact with by his pride, self-sufficiency, and
dissimulation.[6] He
believed that he possessed the power, and had received a commission, to remodel all
knowledge, and establish the world on a new basis. The more fundamental doctrines of
Christianity became the object of his settled dislike, and his most virulent attack. But
it was against the doctrine of the Trinity mainly that his shafts were levelled. Romanism
he had renounced in his youth, but neither did the Reformation satisfy his grand ideal.
Christianity, he held, had been lost at an early age, if indeed it ever had been fully
promulgated to the world. Servetus undertook to restore and re-institute it.[7] About the year 1546 he wrote to
Calvin from Vienne,?to the effect that the Reformer had stopped too soon, that he had
preached as yet only a half-Reformation; and modestly offered to initiate him into his new
system, and assign him the post of leader in that great movement by which mankind were to
be led into a grander domain of truth. He accompanied his letter with a volume in MS., in
which Calvin should see, he said, "stupendous and unheard-of things."[8] The unhappy man had virtually
arrived at pantheism, the final goal of all who in these high matters forsake the path of
Divine revelation.
Calvin saw in the "stupendous things" of Servetus only stupendous follies.
Writing to Farel, 13th February, 1546, the Reformer said: "Servetus lately wrote to
me, and coupled with his letter a long volume of his delirious fancies, with the thrasonic
boast that I should see something astonishing and unheard-of. He takes it upon him to come
hither, if it is agreeable to me. But I am unwilling to pledge my word for his safety, for
if he shall come, I will never permit him to depart alive, provided my authority be of any
avail."[9]
The eye of Calvin saw that the creed of Servetus was essential pantheism. He knew
too that such a creed struck at the whole settlement of Church and State in Geneva, and
would sweep away the basis on which had been placed the republic. Further, the Reformer
foresaw that if Servetus should come to Geneva, and attempt propagating his doctrine, he
would be placed under the painful necessity of choosing between a pantheistic and a
theocratic republic, between Servetus and the Reformation. Sharing in the universal
opinion of his age, that heresy is to be punished with the sword of the magistrate, and
deeming this heresy to be, as indeed it was, subversive not only of the religious belief,
but also the civil order of Geneva, Calvin did not hesitate to avow his preference for the
Protestant over the pantheistic republic, and declared that should Servetus come to
Geneva, he would use his influence that he should "not depart alive."
These words from any pen would fill us with horror, but conting, as they do, from the pen
of Calvin, they inspire us with a double horror. And yet the truth is that we know of no
Reformer of that age, not even Melancthon himself, who would not, in Calvin's position,
most probably have written them:[10] Again
we must repeat, they caused no horror to the age in which they were written; nay, they
were the verdict of that age on the case of Servetus; and if it is impossible that ours
could utter such a verdict, or the Protestant world of our day repeat the crime of the
Protestant world of the sixteenth century, we see in this one of the proudest of the
triumphs of that Protestantism which was then struggling into existence against the mighty
opposing forces of Romanism on the one hand and of pantheism on the other.
In 1552, Servetus published clandestinely at Vienne the MS. volume which he had sent to
Calvin in 1546. It bore the title of Restitutio Christianismi, or "Christianity
Restored." This led to his apprehension by the authorities of Vienne, where he was
tried by the Inquisition. He managed to give his judges the slip, however, and was
condemned in absence to be "burned alive, at a slow fire, till his body be reduced to
a cinder." The award of the court was carried out by the substitution of the effigy
of Servetus for Servetus himself.[11] Escaping
from Vienne he came, of all places, to Geneva! "If ever poor fanatic thrust himself
into the flames," says Coleridge, "it was Servetus."
"I know not what to say of him," exclaimed Calvin in astonishment, "except
that he must have been seized with a fatal madness to precipitate himself upon
destruction." He arrived in the middle of July, and took up his abode at the
"Auberge de la Rose," near the lake.
Calvin had not induced Servetus to come to Geneva; he had in fact, by refusing him a
safe-conduct, warned him off the territory of the republic; nevertheless, now that he was
come, he did what the constitutional laws of Geneva required of him;—he reported his
presence in the city to the Council, and demanded his apprehension.[12] Servetus was committed to prison
on the 13th of August. The law required the accuser to go to prison with the accused till
the charge should be so far substantiated as to warrant its being taken up by the public
prosecutor. Nicholas de la Fontaine, a young student, and secretary to the Reformer,
entered himself as accuser.[13] The
articles of accusation, extracted from the writings of Servetus, were drawn up by Calvin,
and presented next day to the tribunal.
Fontaine was unequal to the task of confronting so subtle and eloquent an opponent as
Servetus. The Council saw this, and at its second meeting all the ministers were requested
to appear. Calvin now at length stood face to face with his adversary. The Reformer's
severe logic soon unmasked the real opinions of the man, and forced him to admit the
frightful conclusions to which they led; but if he put forth all his power in arguing with
Servetus, it was not to procure a conviction, but a recantation, and save the unhappy man
from the flames. "No great danger hung over him," he declared, "if he could
possibly have been brought to his senses."[14] "Would," he sorrowfully exclaimed at a later
period—"Would that we could have obtained a recantation from Servetus, as we did
from Gentilis!"[15]
It must be acknowledged that Servetus on his trial, both at Vienne and Geneva,
showed neither courage nor truthfulness. At the former place he behaved badly indeed. He
disowned his books, denied his handwriting, uttered repeatedly falsehoods on oath, and
professed himself a son of his "holy mother the Church." Swollen with insolence
and venting defiance while at liberty, he proved a very craven before the Inquisition. How
different from the noble sincerity and courage of the martyrs of Protestantism, who at
that very time were expiring amid the flames at Lyons! His behavior before the Council at
Geneva was characterised by alternate insolence and cowardice. When confronted only with
Nicholas de la Fontaine, he professed that he had not intended to blaspheme, and that he
was ready to recant.[16] When
Calvin was introduced, he broke into a tempest of rage, denounced the Reformer as his
personal enemy, again and again called him a liar, and styled him a corrupter of the Word
of God, a foe to Christ, a sorcerer, "Simon Magus." This coming after twenty
years' vituperation and abuse, to which Calvin's reply had been a dignified silence, was
more than the Reformer could bear, and he became heated in his turn and, as he himself
said to Farel, "answered him as he deserved."
The scene revealed the man to his judges. The blasphemies which he avowed, and not less
the haughtiness with which he defended himself, shocked and revolted them. The Trinity he
styled "a three-headed Cerberus,"[17] a hell-hound." Some of the suppositions he made to discredit
the Incarnation were simply indecent, and we pass them by. "If the angels," he
said, "were to take the body of asses, you must allow they would be asses, and would
die in their asses' skins. So too you must allow that, on your supposition being right,
God himself might become an ass, and the Holy Spirit a mule. Can we be surprised if the
Turks think us more ridiculous than mules and asses?" Calvin truly divined the deeper
error beneath these—the denial of a personal God—that is, of God. "His
frenzy was such," says the Reformer, writing to Farel,[18] "that he did not hesitate to say that the Divinity dwells
even in devils. The Godhead is essentially communicated to them as it is to wood and to
stones." "What, unhappy man," replied Calvin, "if any one treading
upon this floor should say to you that he was treading your God under his feet, would you
not be scandalised at such an assertion?" He answered, "I, on the contrary, do
not doubt but that this footstool, or anything else which you may point out, is the
substance of God." When it was again objected to him, "Then will the devil
actually be God," he answered with a peal of laughter, "And can you doubt
it?"
We have narrated in former chapters the war now waging between Calvin and the
Council of Geneva. The First Syndic, Perrin, was the Reformer's mortal enemy. Other
members of the Council, less influential, were equally the determined opponents of the
Reformer, and were laboring for his overthrow. It was, in a word, the crisis of Calvin's
power in Geneva—that is, of all the Reformed laws and institutions of the republic.
M. Rilliet of Geneva, in his Life and Trial of Servetus,[19] has conjectured that what tempted Servetus to enter Geneva at that
time was his knowledge of the state of Parties there, and the hope of replacing Calvin,
then in daily danger of banishment from the city. Be this as it may, the fact is undoubted
that the Libertines perceived the advantage they might derive by playing Servetus off
against the Reformer; and Servetus, on the other hand, was aware of the advantage that
might accrue to him from strengthening the Libertines against Calvin. As the battle went
with Calvin, as the Libertines seemed now to prevail against him, and now to fall before
him, Servetus was contemptuous and defiant, or timid and craven. But the tacit union of
the two helped to bring on the ruin of both.
The patronage of the pantheist by the Libertines wrought ill for Servetus in the end, by
opening the eyes of the Council to the real iussues at stake in the trial. The acquittal
of Servetus, they saw, meant the expulsion of Calvin, and the triumph of the Libertines.
This put the personal interference of the Reformer in the matter out of court, even if his
influence had not at that moment been at zero. The magistrates felt that it was a question
of life and death for the republic, and that they must decide it irrespective altogether
of the wishes of Calvin, and on the high grounds of the interests of the State.[20]
CHAPTER 20 Back to Top
CALVIN'S VICTORY OVER THE LIBERTINES.
Another Arena—Excommunication—Council Grasps the Ecclesiastical
Power—Berthelier Excommunicated—Spiritual Sentence Annulled by the
Senate—The Libertines make Common Cause with Servetus—New Indictment against
Servetus—Calvin Fighting Two Battles at the Same Time—Communion
Sunday—Consistory's Remonstrance with the Council—The Council Changes Nothing in
its Decree—Sunday, 3rd September, 1553—A Momentous Issue to be
Determined—The Comnmnion-table in St. Peter's—The Libertines
Approach—Calvin Debars them—The Reformation Saved—Moral Grandeur of the
Act— The Two Beacons—Worms a Triumph over Tyrannical Power—St. Peter's a
Triumph over Godless Democracy.
LEAVING Servetus in prison, let us repair to another arena of
combat. It is another, and yet the same, for the affair of Servetus has entered the sphere
of Genevan politics, and awakened into fresh intensity the slumbering conflict between the
two parties that divide the republic. Perrin was laboring to undermine, step by step, the
power of Calvin. The pastors had been expelled front the Council-General—the assembly
of the whole people. There followed a more direct attack upon the ecelesiatstical
authority. It was proposed to transfer the power of excommunication from the Consistory to
the Senate. This was to strike a fatal blow at the principle on which Calvin had based the
Reformation of the State. Should this principle be overturned, his work in Geneva would be
at an end; and he might leave it the next hour, so far as any good purpose was to be
served by remaining in it. The Consistory stripped of all independent jurisdictive power,
moral order would fall, and those halcyon days would return when men could go to the
tavern at all hours of the day and night, drink as deep as they had a mind, and disport
themselves in dances like those in which the pagans of old honored the god Bacchus.
About a year and a half before this, Philip Bertheliot had been debarred the
Communion-table by the Consistory. Philip was the son of that Berthelier who, in 1521, had
spilt his blood for the liberty of the Fatherland. As the father had ennobled the State by
his virtues, the son thought he had a right to disgrace it with his vices. "He
was," says Bayle, "a bad liver." He submitted quietly to the
excommunication of the Consistory for a year and a half; but now, deeming the moment
opportune, inasmuch as the tide was running against the Reformer and his policy, he
appeared before the Council and demanded that it should annul the sentence of the
Spiritual Court, and so restore him to communion with the Church. The Reformer hastened to
the Council, and warned it of the fatal consequences of complying with Berthelier's
request, he urged strongly that the edicts of the republic gave the Council no power
concerning excommunication, and that to bind and loose ecclesiastically was to effect a
revolution. The Reformer's remonstrance was disregarded. The Council released Berthelier
from the spiritual sentence, and opened his way to the Communion-table. The axe was laid
at the root of the ecclesiastical discipline, and the days of the Genevan Republic were,
to all appearance, numbered.
From the council-chamber, where the fatal measure in which the Libertines saw the
approaching downfall of the spiritual authority had been passed, Calvin hurried to the
prison, where he and his colleagues were to be confronted with Servetus. This day (lst
September, 1553) it was resolved by the Council that the oral debates between the prisoner
and the pastors should be dropped, and that the discussion should henceforward be carried
on in writing. This change was supported by Perrin and Berthelier, who were there, flushed
with the victory of the morning. The proposal made in the interests of Servetus,[1] who was supposed to be more
eloquent with his pen than with his voice, was adopted, and it brought with it a marked
change in his demeanor, which Rilliet thus describes: "What demonstrates with the
clearest evidence the hope which the prisoner placed in the power of his protectors, is
the language which from that time he adopted, and the open, furious, mortal war which he
waged against the Reformer, now become the object of his direct attacks. Servetus threw
himself, with all the ardor of a man well-nigh sure of victory, into a path where, by his
own confession, he wished to pursue his opponent, 'even till the cause be terminated by
the death of him or me.'"
At the same meeting of Council,[2] Calvin
was ordered to draw up anew articles of indictment from the works of Servetus, in the form
of plain statements, without any reasoning for or against. The crisis which had arisen in
the matter of the ecclesiastical discipline might well, one should think, have engrossed
all the Reformer's thoughts, but he gave himself with his might to this new labor. He
reproduced from the works of the prisoner thirty-eight propositions, and appending neither
note nor comment, and giving simply references to the text, he handed them to the Council.
This done, he turned his thoughts to the graver matter that weighed upon him. The
resolution of the Council touching excommunication was simply a breaking into pieces of
the lever with which he hoped to elevate the republic. The Reformer must fight two battles
at the same time.
Time pressed. The day after the morrow was the first Sunday of September, when, according
to a custom universal in the French Reformed churches, the Communion was to be celebrated [3] and, unless the edict were
revoked, Berthelier would then present himself at the sacred table with the warrant of the
Council in his hand. The Reformer, without a moment's delay, assembled all the pastors,
alike of town and country, and putting himself at their head, proceeded to the Great
Council. He showed, with characteristic energy, the brink to which the decision of the
Little Council had brought the republic; that that decision was a manifest violation of
both the laws of the State and the rules of Scripture; and that if persisted in it would
sweep away all that had been done during the past ten years for the reformation of
manners, and render hopeless all efforts in the future. In short, it was a revolution. The
whole people, he said, had with uplifted hands adopted the edict establishing the
spiritual power in the spiritual court, and "he would die rather than tolerate,
contrary to his conscience, an excomnmnicated man at the sacred table."[4] In this protest the pastors to a
man joined, all declaing that rather than suffer the contemplated profanation they would
"lay down their offices and leave their churches."[5] The Council answered that it "changed nothing in its
decree."[6] In
taking into its own hands the spritual authority, the Council, it might be unwittingly,
assumed the right of trying and adjudging Servetus. It said to the Consistory, Stand
aside; you are dissolved as a court having jurisdiction; we assume the function and
responsibility of giving judgment on all persons and causes, civil and spiritual.
To Perrin and the Libertines victory was following on victory. The coming day, they hoped,
would crown this series of successes. Whichever way Calvin might turn he would, they were
sure, encounter defeat. If he should obey the edict of the Council, he would be disgraced
before the people; if he should disobey it, he would rebel against the magistrate: either
way his power was at an end. They had not yet taken the true measure of the Reformer; or
rather, they had not yet learned how much better is a little wisdom than great cunning. By
the simple strategy of going right forward, the Reformer broke all the toils the
Libertines had woven round him, and swept away alike the victories they had already won
and those which they made themselves sure of winning in the future.
Sunday morning, the 3rd of September, dawned. No more eventful day had for centuries risen
over Geneva, or indeed over Christendom. This day it was to be seen whether Protestantism,
which had retreated within its last stronghold, would recruit: its powers and reorganize
its forces, and from hence go forth to reconquer Christendom, or whether it would
relinquish the battle as beyond its strength. Twice already the great Protestant movement,
after giving promise of emancipating the world, had failed. First the Albigensian revival,
next the Bohemian uprising, overborne by violence, had disappointed the hopes they had
inspired. Was this third movement, which had come nearer the goal than either of the two
preceding ones, after all to fall short of it, and leave the world still under the
dominion of the darkness? The moment was the most critical that had occurred since
Luther's appearance at the Diet of Worms. In Germany, the Reformed phalanx was
demoralized, thanks to the sword and yet more to the Interim of Charles. France, under
Henry II., was blazing with martyr-piles. With Mary, in England, had come a fiercer
tempest of persecution than that country had ever before known. Where now, alas! we hear
Calvin pathetically exclaim, where now are Cranmer, and Ridley, and John a Lasco, and the
hundreds of others in England which the Reformation numbered aforetime amongst its
children? Some of them, leaving their bodies to the flames, had mounted on high, and were
now living with God. Others, crossing seas and mountains, had found a home in foreign
lands. On every side, up to the limits of the Genevan territory, the Reformation was
pursued by the tyrant and the inquisitor. And even here, if the sword was still
restrained, new and hideous foes had risen to assail the Gospel. The abyss of Atheistic
Pantheism had suddenly opened, and a monstrous birth had come up out of it, which sought
to strangle the infant Reformation, where the Hydra sought to strangle the infant
Hercules—in its cradle. Such were the portents that deformed the time.
The customary hour of public worship was now come. The great bell Clemence had tolled out
its summons. The throng of worshippers on their way to the cathedral had rolled past, and
now the streets, which had resounded with their tread, were empty and silent. Over city,
plain, and lake there brooded a deep stillness. It was around the pulpit of St. Peter's,
and the man with pale face, commanding eye, and kingly brow who occupied it, that the
heart of Geneva palpitated. The church was filled with an uneasy crowd. On the benches of
the Consistory sat, unmoved, the pastors and elders, resolved to bear the greatest
violence rather than not do their duty. A confused noise was heard within the temple. The
congregation opened with difficulty, and a numerous band of men, of all ranks, their hands
upon their sword-hilts, forced their way in presence of the holy table. The elite of the
Libertines had decided to communicate. Berthelier did not appear as yet. He reserved
himself till the last moment.[7]
Calvin, calm as ever, rose to begin the service. He could not but see the group of
Libertines in the vast congregation before him, but he seemed as if he saw them not. He
preached on the state of mind with which the Lord's Supper ought to be received. At the
close, raising his voice, he said.[8] "As
for me, so long as God shall leave me here, since he hath given me fortitude, and I have
received it from him, I will employ it, whatever betide; and I will guide myself by my
Master's rule, which is to me clear and well known. As we are now about to receive the
Holy Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ, if any one who has been debarred by the Consistory
shall approach this table, though it should cost my life, I will show myself such as I
ought to be."[9]
When the liturgies were concluded, Calvin came down from the pulpit and took his
stand before the table. Lifting up the white napkin he displayed the symbols of Christ's
body and blood, the food destined for believing souls. Having blessed the bread and wine,
he was about to distribute them to the congregation. At that moment there was seen a
movement among the Libertines as if they would seize the bread and the cup. The Reformer,
covering the sacred symbols with his hands, exclaimed in a voice that rang through the
edifice, "These hands you may crush; these arms you may lop off; my life you may
take; my blood is yours, you may shed it; but you shall never force me to give holy things
to the profane, and dishonor the table of my God."[10] These words broke like a thunder-peal over the Libertines. As if
an invisible power had flung back the ungodly host, they slunk away abashed, the
congregation opening a passage for their retreat.[11] A deep calm succeeded; and "the sacred ordinance," says
Beza, "was celebrated with a profound silence, and under a solemn awe in all present,
as if the Deity himself had been visible among them."[12]
Than the transaction we have just narrated, we know nothing more truly sublime in
the whole history of the Reformation, that epoch of heroic men and of grand events. The
only thing we can compare with it is Luther's appearance at the Diet of Worms. If we
abstract the dramatic accompaniments of the latter scene—the gorgeous hall; the
majesty of the emperor; the blaze of princely and knightly rank gathered round him; the
glitter of stars and decorations; the men-at-arms; the lackeys and other
attendants—and look only at the principle at stake, and the wide and lasting good
achieved by the prompt vindication of that principle, the act of Calvin in the Cathedral
of St. Peter's, in 1553, stands side by side, its equal in spiritual sublimity and
heroism, with the act of Luther in the Hall of Worms, in 1521. "I cannot," said
Luther. "I will not," said Calvin. The one repelled the tyrant, the other flung
back the mob; the one stemmed the haughtiness of power, the other bridled the raging fury
of ungodliness; in both the danger was equal, in both the faith and fortitude were equal,
and each saved the Reformation at a great crisis.
These two acts, Luther's at Worms and Calvin's in St. Peter's, were in fact two
beacon-lights kindled by providence for the instruction of Europe. They were hung out at
the opening of a new epoch, to enable Christendom to pilot itself past two tremendous
dangers that lay right in its course. The one of these dangers was only beginning to be
visible. The conflict waged in St. Peter's on Sunday, the 3rd of September, 1553, showed
how that danger was to be avoided. A Protestant Church, scripturally constituted, and
faithfully governed, was the only possible breakwater against that lawless pantheism which
was even then lifting up its head and threatening society with ruin. Such was the lesson
taught by the heroic act in St. Peter's. Calvin was the first man against whom the foul
and furious tide of communism dashed itself; it broke against the pulpit of St. Peter's
before it precipitated itself upon the throne of France.
It has since with swelling and triumphant crest overwhelmed parliaments and dynasties,
laid prostrate thrones and devastated kingdoms; but in contemplating these dismal
tragedies it becomes us to call to mind that the Reformer of Geneva confronted this
communism 300 years ago, that he confronted it single-handed, and conquered it. Had the
principles of Protestantism been rooted and grounded in every parish of France, yielding
the same spiritual fruits as they did at Geneva, how different would have been the history
of a people to whom nature has given a genius so manifold that it would have shone equally
in the beauty of their arts and in the grace and brilliancy of their literature; in the
valor of their arms, and the equity of their jurisprudence; in the purity of their homes,
and in the freedom and stability of their public institutions. But continuing under the
malign power of a corrupted and a corrupting faith, this race, so richly endowed, has had
its great qualities transformed into headlong passions which have entailed upon country
and throne three centuries of calamities and woes.
CHAPTER 21 Back to Top
APPREHENSION AND TRIAL OF SERVETUS.
"Here I stand," etc.—Calvin expects to be Banished—Takes Farewell of
his Flock—Servetus—Resume—Servetus asks to Dispute with Calvin— The
Magistrates Refuse—Nicholas de la Fontaine—Enters himself as Prosecutor for
Calvin—Examination of Servetus—Defended by Berthelier—Calvin comes
forward—The Council take the Prosecution into their own hands—Indictment of the
Attorney-General—Sedition the Main Charge against Servetus—Servetus pleads for
Free Inquiry—His Cause Mixed up with the Libertines'—Boldness of
Servetus—Calvin's Struggle with the Council—Shall the Reformer Quit
Geneva?—His Influence with the Magistrates at Zero.
IT seemed, indeed, a small matter whether Calvin should give
the Sacrament to Berthelier or withhold it. But the question in another form, as Calvin
clearly saw, was whether he should maintain the Reformation or abandon it. The moment he
should put the consecrated elements into the hands of the Libertine, that moment he would
lay the spiritual prerogative at the feet of the civil power, and Geneva would fall as the
bulwark of Protestantism. To Berthelier, therefore, with the edict of the Council in his
hand, and his Libertine hordes at his back, Calvin said, "No". It was the
"Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. So help me, God," repeated over again, at
a moment equally critical, and in the face of a danger equally great.
The Reformer had escaped the greater danger, even death, which the Libertines hinted would
be the penalty of refusal, but exile still hung over him. In the evening of the same
Sunday he ascended the pulpit, to take farewell of the flock from which he expected the
coming day would see him parted probably for ever. He chose as the subject of his
discourse Paul's farewell address to the elders of the Church of Ephesus, and the scene
witnessed that night on the banks of the Leman was almost as touching as that enacted
fifteen centuries before on the shores of the AEgean.[1] Closing his sermon and spreading out his hands over his loving
flock, for the last time as he believed, he said, "I commend you to God and to the
word of his grace." The words were mingled with the sobs and tears of those to whom
they were spoken.
But no order of banishment came on the morrow, though he waited hour after hour for it.
The Reformer perceived that so far the victory remained with him. Left undisturbed, he
turned his thoughts to the other matter which was then engrossing him, for he was
grappling with two foes at once. We shall now turn with him to this, in every view of it,
sad affair.
In order to an accurate idea of the trial, and of the various interests that combined to
guide it to its deplorable issue, we must briefly review the steps already taken. On the
13th of August, Calvin, having learned that Servetus was in Geneva, demanded his arrest.
But Genevese law required the accuser to go to prison along with the accused till he had
shown reasonable grounds for his accusation. Nicholas de la Fontaine, the secretary of
Calvin, gave himself up in the stead of the Reformer. Next day a complaint in thirty-eight
articles, drawn up, as we have said, by Calvin, was presented against Servetus. On the
morrow the Council assembled in the Criminal Audience Chamber in the prison, and Servetus,
having been interrogated on the articles, demanded a public disputation, promising to
confute Calvin from Scripture and the Fathers. The prisoner further urged that it did not
become a civil court to adjudicate on such matters. Here was a door opened for the Council
to escape responsibility, had it chosen.
"But," says Rilliet, "the magistrates refused to entertain the proposal,
though Calvin for his part agreed, and protested that, as far as regarded him, 'there was
nothing that he more desired than to plead such a cause in the temple before all the
people.'" Why, we ask, this refusal on the part of the magistrates? Rilliet answers,
"The Council feared, no doubt, that it would thus dispossess itself of the cognisance
of an affair which stood connected with the prerogatives of which it had recently appeared
so jealous;"[2] that
is, the Council was then struggling to shut out the Consistory, and to secure to itself
the spiritual as well as the civil government of Geneva.
The preliminary examination of Servetus ended, the Council, having regard to "his
replies, "found that the charges were true, and accordingly Nicholas de la Fontaine
was discharged from prison, under obligation to appear as often as he might be called, and
to prosecute his case. The Council, in coming to the conclusion that Servetus was guilty,
appear to have been influenced less by his opinions on the Trinity than by his views on
baptism. The frightful excesses of the Anabaptists in Germany and Switzerland, which were
fresh in their memory, made the Council, doubtless, view this as the most dangerous part
of his creed.
Tomorrow (16th August) when the Council assembled to prosecute the affair, two new parties
appeared on the arena. These were Philibert Berthelier, the Libertine opponent of Calvin,
and M. Germain Colladon, a Protestant refugee, and a man learned in the law. Colladon was
associated with Fontaine in the defense and prosecution. These two—Berthelier and
Colladon, were representatives of the two parties into which Geneva was divided, and their
appearance indicated that the affair was tending to wider issues than any personal to
Servetus; in short, it was becoming the battle-ground on which the question was to be
determined whether Libertine Pantheism or the Protestant faith should hold possession of
Geneva. Such is the inference of Rilliet, who says: "Each of the antagonists saw
behind the proceedings carried on in the bishop's palace, the interest of the parties who
disputed for Geneva."[3]
It appears from the minutes that, at this meeting of Council, Berthelier undertook
the defense of Servetus, and strongly argued in favor of his peculiar doctrines as well as
of himself; Colladon attacked with equal ardor both the errors and their author; the
violence of the debate extended itself to the Council, and the sitting, which was a stormy
one, was abruptly terminated.[4]
This scene brought forward a more powerful man than any who had hitherto appeared
in the prosecution. Berthelier was at that moment under excommunication by the Consistory,
and he had a petition lying on the table of the Council to have the sentence of the
spiritual court cancelled. It was thus tolerably plain that his championship of Servetus
was inspired not so much by the wish to defend the prisoner, as by his desire to overthrow
the Consistory. "Calvin felt," says Rilliet, "that the moment had arrived
for him to appear, and boldly to resist the hostilities against himself, of which Servetus
was about to become the occasion,"[5] if he would not see his whole work in Geneva swept away;
accordingly the very next day he declared that he would appear as accuser. "The
Reformer was now invited by the Council to assist, 'in order that his errors might be
better demonstrated,' and to have 'whomsoever he chose with him' at the examinations of
the prisoner.'"[6] At
the first meeting after this, at which Calvin was present, a sharp debate took place
between him and Servetus.
The issue was that the Council found that the charges contained in the indictment were
proven from the books given in, in evidence, and the prisoner's own confessions.[7] Fontaine had previously been
discharged from prison; now he was released from his obligation to prosecute, and the
affair was taken entirely into the hands of the Attorney-General.[8]
The second act of the trial opened on the 21st of August. Their Exeellencies in
Council assembled resolved as follows:—"Inasmuch as the case of heresy of M.
Servetus vitally affects the welfare of Christendom, it is resolved to proceed with his
trial."[9] At
this sitting, Calvin and the ministers, his colleagues, were introduced by the
Attorney-General. They were wanted to give their evidence as to the meaning of the word
person, as used in certain passages of the Fathers. Servetus taught that the person of the
Son of God had no existence prior to the Incarnation. He held that Christ existed from all
eternity only as an idea, not as a person, in the essence or bosom of God, and that the
term Son of God is applied in Scripture to Christ Jesus as a man.[10] He cited passages from
Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Clement, favorable as he thought to this opinion; and it was to
give judgment on Servetus' interpretatin of these passages that the pastors were now
summoned. The service asked of them they rendered.
At the meeting on the 23rd, the Attorney-General produced a new indictment against
Servetus. It differed considerably from that which Fontaine had given in when the prisoner
was first arrested, and which had been drawn up by Calvin. This new indictment dropped the
theological errors of Servetus out of view altogether, well-nigh, and gave marked
prominence to his offenses against society. Its title ran thus:—"These are the
interrogations and articles upon which the Attorney-General of this city desires to
question Michael Servetus, a prisoner, guilty of blasphemies, of heresies, and of
disturbing Christendom." "If Servetus had had, in the eyes of Genevese
justice," says Rilliet, "no other fault than that of which De la Fontaine had
declared him guilty in regard to Calvin, his acquittal had been sure." "If
Calvin alone," he continues, "had been concerned in the affair of Servetus, all
his efforts would have been unavailing to secure the condemnation of his adversary."
"Servetus was tried," says he again, "and, as we shall mention below,
condemned by the majority of his judges, not at all as the opponent of
Calvin—scarcely as a heretic—but essentially as seditious. Politics acted a much
more important part than theology, towards the close of this trial—they came on the
stage with the Attorney-General."[11] Servetus saw the new position in which he stood, and strove to
defend himself against the charges of the Attorney-General, not by denying that his
opinions were theologically false, but by trying to show that they were not socially
dangerous. This defense he followed up with a petition to the magistrates, in which he
labored to convince them that his opinions at the worst were only speculative errors, and
not practical seditions; and, adds Rilliet, had he been able to make it appear that they
were "divested of all practical results, the issue of his trial would not have been
fatal." [12]
There came, at this stage of the business, a series of discussions on points which
we cannot help thinking were irrelevant. Servetus was interrogated respecting his
persistency in publishing his opinions, seeing he knew they were condemned by ancient
Councils and imperial decrees, and the evil he had done or wished to do society by
maintaining them. He replied, with ability and apparent frankness, that believing it to be
the truth which he held, he would have offended God if he had not published it; that the
ecclesiastical edicts and imperial decrees, which menaced him with death for these
opinions, dated from a period when the Church had become more or less corrupt, and that
the Church in apostolic times knew no such edicts, nor approved the doctrine of repelling
opinion by force. These were truths, and the only mistake about them—to Servetus a
very serious one—was that they came three centuries too soon, and were addressed to
judges who were incapable of feeling their force. But when the prisoner affirmed that he
had hardly ever spoken to any one on his peculiar opinions, he stated what it was
impossible to reconcile with the known fact of his twenty years' active diffusion of his
sentiments in Germany and France.
This was the very week in which the struggle between Calvin and the Libertines came to a
crisis.[13] The
authority, and it might be the life of the Reformer, hung upon the issue of that contest.
Servetus from his prison watched the ebb and flow of the battle, and was humble and bold
by turns, as victory appeared to incline now to Calvin and now to the Libertines. The
approaching Sunday was that of the September Communion, and Berthelier, as we have seen,
held an order from the Council, authorising him to appear at the holy table.
This seemed the death-warrant of Calvin's power. We can trace the influence of this turn
of affairs upon Servetus. The Council had ordered Calvin to extract from his works, and to
present without note or comment, those propositions in them which he deemed false. In
obedience to the order, the Reformer drew up thirty-eight articles,[14] which were given to the prisoner
to be answered by him. But Servetus' reply bore the character of a bitter attack upon the
Reformer, rather than that of a defense of himself. "Wretch," said he,
apostrophising Calvin, "do you think to stun the ears of the judges by your barking?
You have a confused intellect, so that you cannot understand the truth. Perverted by Simon
Magus, you are ignorant of the first principles of things—you make men only blocks
and stones, by establishing the slavery of the will."[15] To write thus within the walls of a prison, was to be very sure of
victory!
Nay, Servetus, looking upon Calvin as already fallen, no longer has recourse to
subterfuges; he no longer seeks to show that his doctrines are innocuous. Throwing aside
the veil, he openly avows that he held the opinions imputed to him in his indictment. He
had drawn up his self-accusation with his own hand.
Calvin instantly wrote an answer to the paper of Servetus, as the Council had required.
His strong hand thrust back the unhappy man into his former position. "Injurious
words against Servetus," says Rilliet, "are not spared, but these were a coin so
current in those days that, instead of being deemed excessive, they fell from the pen
without observation." The Reformer's answer was given in to the judges, signed by all
the ministers of the Church of Geneva, fourteen in number. No sooner has Calvin laid down
the pen than, seeing his own position and work are at that moment trembling in the
balance, he turns to the other and graver conflict. On Saturday, the 2nd of September, he
appeared before the Little Council to demand the cancelling of the warrant given to
Berthelier to receive the Lord's Supper. The Council declined to comply. It retained in
its own hands the power to admit or to exclude whomsoever it would from the
Communion-table. It stripped Calvin and the Consistory of all ecclesiastical authority and
power, and, of course, of all responsibility for censures and punishments of an
ecclesiastical kind. This power the Council took solely upon itself. The use it made of it
will afterwards appear.
The scene that took place in the Cathedral of St. Peter's the very next day we have
already narrated. But the Reformer did not account it enough that he refused to obey in a
matter which the laws of the State gave no right to the Council to command; he resolved,
although at the risk of life, to maintain the battle, and reconquer the lost prerogative,
without which he would not remain in Geneva.
On the 7th September, Calvin and his colleagues went to the Little Council, with the text
of the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, and appealing to the letter of the law he showed the
Council that the Ordinances gave it no power concerning excommunication, and that what it
had done was a subversion of the Constitution of Geneva. He further craved the Council to
make known its final determination upon the point, that he and his colleagues might be
able to regulate their conduct as regarded resigning or retaining their functions in
Geneva. The Council took three days to consider the matter, and, adds the Register, it
"commanded that meanwhile M. Calvin must preach and do his duty." On the 18th
September, the Council passed a resolution declaring that "it would adhere to the
edicts as it had hitherto done."[16] This reply, in point of ambiguity, was almost Delphic. Interpreted
by recent edicts, it meant that the Council saw nothing inconsistent with the edicts in
what they had done, and would still retain in their own hands the ecclesiastical
government. Still the Reformer did not view it as justifying him in abandoning his work in
Geneva, and Farel and other friends wrote at this crisis earnestly beseeching him not to
quit his post.
Meanwhile Servetus was busy in his prison with his annotations on Calvin's reply. The
unhappy man, believing that his friends, the Libertines, who communicated with him through
the jailer, were on the eve of triumphing, and that the Reformer was as good as fallen,
was no longer at pains to conceal his intense hatred of the latter. Writing between the
lines and on the margin of Calvin's document, he expressed himself in the following
melancholy terms— "You howl like a blind man in desert places, because the
spirit of vengeance burns in your heart. You lie, you lie, you lie, you ignorant
calumniator."[17] There
followed a good deal more in the same vein. The Reformer was shown the writing, but
leaving to Servetus the last word, he deigned no reply.
At this stage of the affair the magistrates of Geneva resolved (19th September) to consult
the Helvetic Churches. Servetus himself had expressed a wish to that effect. A messenger
of State, Jacquemoz Jernoz, was dispatched on the 21st to the Churches of Bern, Zurich,
Schaffhausen, and Basle. He carried letters to the magistrates as well as to the pastors
of the four cities, as also the requisite documents—namely, the articles of
accusation, the papers exchanged between Servetus and Calvin, and a copy of the
Christianismi Restitutio.
From this moment Calvin quits the scene. The course of the affair was precisely what it
would have been although he had not been in Geneva at all. His influence with the Council
was then at zero. We think we can see the end served thereby, though Calvin could not. To
him it was only mortifying as betokening impending overthrow to the Reformation in Geneva.
Writing to Bullinger at Zurich, on the 7th of September, he says: "Were I to declare
that it is day at high-noon, they [the Council] would immediately begin to doubt it."
That is all which he could put on paper, but, adds he, "our brother Walther [the
son-in-law of Bullinger] will tell you more." This shows that the idea entertained by
some that the Reformer was at that time all-powerful with the Council, and that he
dictated the sentence it was to pronounce, is an entire misapprehension.
CHAPTER 22 Back to Top
CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF SERVETUS.
The Swiss Churches Consulted—Servetus Demands Calvin's Impeachment—Answer of the
Swiss Churches—Their Verdict Unanimous—Council Condemns Servetus to be
Burned—Calvin Intercedes that the Sword be Substituted for the Stake—Sentence
Communicated to Servetus—Farel—Interview between Servetus and
Calvin—Servetus Summoned to Execution—his Terror—The Procession—View
from Champel—Farel's Last Conversation with Servetus—The Pile
Kindled—Servetus Dies—Gibbon—Jurisprudence of the Age—No Romanist can
Condemn Calvin.
IN the resolution to which the magistrates of Geneva had
come, to lay the affair of Serveins before the Swiss Reformed Churches, we see the
Churches of Helvetia formed into a jury. Pending the verdict, which it would seem Servetus
did not for a moment doubt would be entirely in his favor, the accused took another step
against Calvin. From his prison, on the 22nd of September, he sent to the Council a list
of "articles on which M. Servetus wishes J. Calvin to be interrogated." He there
accuses Calvin of having falsely imputed to him the opinion that the soul is mortal.
"If I have said that—not merely said it, but publicly written it—to infect
the world, I would condemn myself to death. Wherefore, my lords, I demand that my false
accuser be punished, poena talionis, and that he be detained a prisoner like me, till the
cause be decided for his death or mine, or other punishment."[1] Servetus had formerly declined
the civil jurisdiction in matters theological; he now, in the hope of placing the Reformer
in the same hazard as himself, accepts that jurisdiction in those very matters in which he
had before declined it. And further, he makes it plain that he was not more liberal than
his age, in holding that a conviction for heresy ought to draw after it the punishment of
death.
Meanwhile the State messenger was making his circuit of the four cities, sojourning long
enough in each to permit the magistrates and pastors to consider the documents, and make
up their minds. At the end of nearly a month, the messenger returned. The answers of the
cities and pastors were given in to the Council on the 18th of October: they were eight in
all, there being a deliverance from the Government and a deliverance from the Church in
each case. The verdict eight times pronounced, with awful unanimity, was death. Thus,
outside the territory of Geneva, was the fate of Servetus decided.[2] About the same time that the
suffrages of the Swiss Churches were given in, an officer arrived at Geneva from the
tribunal of Vienne. This man carried an order from his masters empowering him to demand
the surrender of the prisoner, and bring him to Vienne, that he might undergo the sentence
that had been passed upon him. Their Lordships of Geneva replied that it was not their
custom to give up one charged with a crime till he had been either acquitted or condemned.
However, confronting Servetus with the Viennese officer, they asked him whether he would
remain with them or go back with the person who had come to fetch him. The unhappy man
with tears in his eyes replied, "Messieurs of Geneva, judge me according to your good
pleasure, but do not send me back with the hangman." This interference of the Roman
Catholic authorities of Vienne hastened the fate of the prisoner.[3]
The Council of Geneva assembled on the 26th of October to give judgment. The
discussion was a stormy one. Perrin, with the Libertines, fought hard to save the accused;
but the preponderating majority felt that the case could have but one issue. Servetus had
already been condemned by the Popish tribunal of Vienne; the tribunal of the Swiss Reform
had unanimously condemned him; the codes of Theodosius and Justinian, which still formed
the basis of the criminal jurisprudence of Geneva, condemned him; and the universal
opinion of Christendom, Popish and Protestant, held him to be worthy of death. To these
considerations was added the horror his sentiments had inspired in all minds. Not only did
his opinions outrage the fundamental doctrines of the then common creed of Christendom;
they assailed with atrocious blasphemy the persons of the Trinity; and they tore up, in
their last consequences, the roots of society, by striking down conscience within man, and
the power of law without him. What day the Council acquitted Servetus, it pronounced the
dissolution of the State, political and religious, and opened the flood-gates on
Christendom of those horrible impieties and massacring crusades which had already
inflicted fearful havoc in many of the provinces of Germany.
Europe, they believed, would not hold them guiltless if they let loose this plague a
second time. Therefore, without consulting Calvin, without even thinking of him, and
viewing the question as a social rather than a theological one, and dealing with it as
sedition rather than heresy for, says Rilliet, "the principles of order, as then
understood, did not permit them longer to hesitate as to whether or not they should see in
them [i.e., the opinions of Servetus] the crime of treason against society"[4] —the magistrates of Geneva
closed their Diet of the 26th of October with a decree condemning Servetus to death.
"Let him," so ran the decree of the Council, as described in the Register,
"be condemned to be led to Champel, and there burned alive, and let him be executed
tomorrow, and his books consumed."[5]
We record with horror the sentence, but it is the sentence not of the magistrates
of Geneva only, nor of the magistrates and pastors of Reformed Switzerland only: it is the
sentence of the Christendom of that age, for the Inquisition on one side, and Melancthon
on the other, are heard expressing their concurrence in it. At this supreme hour one man
alone comes forward to attempt a mitigation of the punishment of Servetus.
Who is that man? He is John Calvin. He earnestly interceded with the Council, not that the
unfortunate victim might be spared, but that the sword might be substituted for the fire;
but he interceded in vain. "It is to him, notwithstanding," says Rilliet,
"that men have always imputed the guilt of that funeral pile, which he wished had
never been reared."[6]
We must pursue this affair to its appalling and scandalous termination. Farel, who
had been watching from Neuchatel the progress of the trial, came suddenly to Geneva at its
close. He was present with the unhappy man when the message of death was brought him. Up
till that moment Servetus had clung to the hope of acquittal. He was horror-struck when
the dreadful reality disclosed itself to him. "He was at intervals," says
Calvin, "like one mad—then he uttered groans, which resounded through his
chamber—anon he began to howl like one out of his senses. In brief, he had all the
appearance of a demoniac. At last his outcry was so great that he without intermission
exclaimed in Spanish, striking his breast, 'Mercy! mercy!'" A terrible picture! and
one cannot but wish that, with its graphic touches, there had mingled a little more of
that pity which it needs must awaken for the sufferer in the heart of every one who reads
it. When his first paroxysm had subsided, Farel, addressing Servetus, besought him
"to repent of his sins, and confess the God who had thrice revealed himself."[7] This appeal but rekindled the
polemical pride of the unhappy man.
Turning to the aged evangelist, he asked him to produce a single passage from Scripture
where Christ was called the Son of God previous to his coming in the flesh. Farel quoted
several such passages; but Servetus, though he had nothing to reply, remained unconvinced,
and continued to mingle cries for mercy, and appeals to Christ as his Savior, with his
disputation with Farel, in which he maintained that Christ was not eternal, nor otherwise
the Son of God except as regards his humanity.[8]
After this he requested, or at least consented, to see Calvin. The Reformer was
accompanied to the prison by two members of Council, for it was just possible that the
condemned would make a retractation, and the terrible necessity of his death be avoided.
Being asked by one of the councillors what he had to say to Calvin, Servetus answered that
he desired to ask his pardon. "I protest," replied the Reformer, "that I
have never pursued against you any private quarrel." Mildly, yet with the utmost
fidelity, Calvin went on to remind Servetus of the pains he had been at to prevent him
plunging into these destructive errors; and he counselled him, even now, to turn to God,
and cast himself by repentance and faith on his Son for pardon.[9] But Calvin had no better success than Farel; and, finding that he
could effect nothing, he withdrew.
Whose heart does not bleed for the unhappy man? We feel a compassion and sorrow for
Servetus such as we feel for no martyr. The men who died for the Gospel were upheld by the
greatness and justice of their cause. Instead of falling prostrate before their judges,
they stood erect, their faces shining with the light of faith. They trod the path to the
fire, not with serenity only, but with songs of holy triumph, knowing that "one like
unto the Son of Man" would descend and stand beside them in the midst of the flames.
But, alas! where shall Servetus look for consolation in his hour of agony? On whose arm
shall he lean when he goes forth to die? and who will be his companion when he stands at
the stake? The Trinity was to him "a Cerberus." From that Son to whom the Father
said, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever," and who is "able to save
to the uttermost," and from that Holy Spirit "who is the Comforter," his
creed shut him out. And now, when the storm comes down upon him in a violence so terrific,
he is without a shelter. No rock can he find on which to stay his feet amid the surging
billows. At the gates of the new dispensation on which Christendom is entering stands
Servetus, a monument of salt, to show the world how little power there is in a creed
emptied of all the great verities of revelation, to sustain the soul amid the grand and
dread eventualities of existence.
As yet Servetus was ignorant, that he was to die by fire. Calvin had earnestly besought
the Council that the miserable man might be spared this terrible surprise, but he had
pleaded in vain. The magistrates would not permit him to influence their proceedings in
the matter, even to the extent of substituting the sword for the stake. It was the morning
of the 27th of October, the day named for execution; Farel and some country ministers were
with Servetus as early as seven o'clock. The precious hours would seem to have passed in
wretched polemical discussions on the part of the condemned, who seemed more intent on
triumphing in the argument with the pastors, than prevailing in his suit at the gates of
the Eternal Mercy. It was now eleven o'clock in the forenoon. The Lord Lieutenant,
accompanied by the Secretary of Justice, entered the prison, and addressed Servetus in the
customary words, "Come with me and hear the good pleasure of my lords."[10] He was led before the court.
"The staff was broken over his head,"[11] as was the wont with criminals adjudged to death, and the sentence
was then read by the presiding syndic. Scarcely had the last words, which doomed him
"to be fastened to a stake, and burned alive, till his body be reduced to
ashes," fallen on his ears, when he cast himself at the feet of his judges,
entreating that he might be permitted to die by the sword,"[12] saying that if he had erred, he
had erred through ignorance, and that his opinions were conformable to the Word of God.
The syndics remained inexorable. Turning to the prisoner, Farel said that he must first
disavow his errors, and then ask forgiveness. Again Servetus obtested his innocence,
saying that he was being led to death as a sacrifice, and that he prayed God to forgive
his accusers. Farel, with a sternness which is at least remarkable, threatened, should
Servetus persist in these protestations of innocence, to leave him, and not go with him to
the stake. The wretched man, feeling that in parting with Farel he was parting with the
last poor remnant of human sympathy and comfort left him, held his peace.[13]
Doom has been spoken, and now the procession is marshalled and descends the steps
of the town-hall. The Lord Lieutenant and the Herald, in the insignia of their office,
head the way on horseback. Aghast, trembling, and pallid with terror, the white-haired
Farel by his side, Servetus appears in the midst of the archers that form his escort. A
crowd, smaller than usually assists at such sights, brings up the rear. The executioners
had gone on before to prepare the funeral pile. The procession issued from the city by the
gate of St. Anthony. They leave on the left the spot, now bare, where stood the celebrated
Faubourg and Church of St. Victor, razed in 1534 for the defense of the city; on the right
are the downs of Plain Palais, the Campus Martius of Geneva. The one recalled the
sacrifices of the citizens for liberty, the other their gala-days of civic festival and
military pomp. In the south, about a mile from the city gates, rose the little eminence of
Champel, on the summit of which the stake had been fixed [14] Sobs and ejaculatory prayers burst from Servetus as he pursued his
brief and bitter pilgrimage to the fire. "O God!" he cried, "deliver my
soul. Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father, have mercy on me."
Farel has no word of solace to offer; he moves along by the side of Servetus, half in
sorrow, half in anger; this to us looks heartless—nay, cruel; but Farel doubtless
felt that consolation he could not offer without being insincere, and doing violence to
his own convictions. It was his uprightness that made him look so stern, for the more
earnest he was for the true welfare of the unhappy man he was accompanying to the stake,
all the more did he strive to bring him to place his eternal hopes, not upon the man-God,
but upon the God-man.[15]
The melancholy procession had now arrived at Champel. The stake that rose on its
summit was the one dark object in a scene otherwise full of light and beauty. The vast
plain, which lay outspread around the spot, wore a carpet of the richest foliage, now
beginning to be chequered with the autumnal tints. The far-off mountains were tipped with
the first silver of winter. In the center of the immense picture gleamed the blue Leman, a
mirror of polished steel. On the south of it were seen, rushing along in their winding
course, the snow-grey waters of the Arve. On the north was the mighty amphitheatre of the
woody Jura, which, entering France and sweeping down towards Savoy, showed its massy
rampart cleft in the southwest to give passage to the Rhone. In this assemblage of riches
one object alone appeared in naked desolation. At some distance rose the steep, barren,
rocky Saleve, its blackness typical of the tragedy transpiring on the summit of the little
Champel, on which it looked down.
Farel asks him whether he has wife or child, and would wish to make his will? Servetus
makes him no answer.[16] He
asks again whether he has anything else to say, hoping till the last moment to hear him
confess a Divine Redeemer. Sighing deeply, Servetus exclaims, "O God! O God!"
Farel bids him ask the prayers of the people. He does so; Farel uniting his own
exhortations to the same effect to the bystanders.[17] While these supplications are being offered in silence, Servetus
mounts the pile and seats himself on the log of wood which had been placed there for that
purpose. He was fastened to the stake by an iron chain put round his body, and a rope
twisted round his neck. The executioner now kindled the torch, and, approaching the pile,
set fire to the wood. At the first glare of the flames Servetus gave a shriek so terrible
that it made the crowd fall back.[18] On
his head was a wreath, woven of straw and leaves, sprinkled with brimstone, the sooner to
suffocate him. His book, Restitutio Christianismi, was bound to his side, to be consumed
with him.[19] The
fire burned but slowly, and he lived for half-an-hour at the stake.[20] Some narrators say that a little
before expiring he cried aloud, "Jesus, Thou Son of the Eternal God, have mercy upon
me!" Farel says, on the other hand, that he protested "in the midst of the
flames, and in defiance of the whole Christian world, against the doctrine of the
Trinity."
A great historian exclaims that the stake of Servetus caused him greater horror than all
the autos-da-fe of Rome. A signal inconsistency—as the burning of Servetus in a
Protestant republic was—may no doubt strike one more than does a course of crime
steadily and persistently pursued; but surely that mind is strangely constituted which is
less moved to commiseration by thousands of victims than by one victim. The same century
which witnessed the pile of Servetus saw some thirty or forty thousand fires kindled by
the Church of Rome [21] for
the burning of Protestants. But we by no means plead the latter fact as a vindication of
the former. We deplore—we condemn—this one pile. It was a violation of the first
principles of Protestantism. To say more on this head, writing as we do in the nineteenth
century, would be simply to declaim.
But let us not commit the injustice of Gibbon and those who have followed him. Let us not
select one of the actors, and make him the scapegoat of his age. We have striven to give
an impartial statement of facts, that the reader may know the precise share which Calvin
had in this transaction, and the exact amount of condemnation to mete out to him.
Calvin informed the Council of Servetus' arrival in Geneva; he drew up the articles of
indictment from the writings of Servetus, the first time at his own instance, and the
second time at the Council's order; and he maintained these when face to face with
Servetus before the syndics. All this he could not decline to do without neglect of duty
as president of the Consistory. All this he was bound to do by the law of the State. If we
are to be discriminating in our censure, we must go farther back than the denunciation
given in to the Council, and come to the order of things established at Geneva, which
rendered this form of procedure in such cases imperative. It was a vicious jurisprudence;
but it was the jurisprudence of former ages, and of that age, and the jurisprudence freely
adopted by the citizens of Geneva. Those who condemn Calvin for conforming to it in a
matter of public duty, are in reality condemning him for not being wiser in judicial
matters than all previous ages, his own included, and for not doing what there is no proof
he had power to do, namely, changing the law of the State, and the opinions of the age in
which he lived. Beyond what we have stated Calvin had no influence, and tried to exert
none.
We further grant that Calvin wished a conviction, and that he approved of the sentence as
just—nay, expressed his satisfaction with it, having respect to the alternative of
acquittal—namely, the expulsion of the Reformation from Geneva. We condemn him for
these views; but that is to condemn him for living in the sixteenth and not in the
nineteenth century, and we condemn not him alone, but his age, for all who lived with him
shared these views, and believed it a duty to punish heresy with death; although even
already Calvin, as appears from his book of the following year, had separated himself from
the Romish idea that heresy is to be punished as heresy—is to be smitten by the
sword, though it should exist only in the depth of one's bosom. He would have the heretic
punished only when he promulgates his opinions to the disturbance of society. This is to
come very near—nearer perhaps than any other man of his day came—to the modern
doctrine of toleration.
But further, it is only Protestants who are entitled to find fault with Calvin. No
Romanist can utter a word of condemnation. No Romanist of Calvin's's own age did condemn
him,[22] and no more can any Romanist of
ours. The law of the Romish world to this day awards death by burning to heresy; and the
Romanist who condemns the affair of Servetus, condemns what his Church then accounted, and
still accounts, a righteous and holy deed; and so condemns his Church, and himself not
less, as a member of it. He virtually declares that he ought to be a Protestant.
To Calvin, above all men, we owe it that we are able to rise above the error that misled
his age. And when we think, with profound regret, of this one stake planted by Protestant
hands, surely we are bound to reflect, with a gratitude not less profound, on the
thousands of stakes which the teaching of Calvin has prevented ever being set up.[23]
CHAPTER 23 Back to Top
CALVIN'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH MARTYRS,
REFORMERS, AND MONARCHS.
Calvin at the Center- Stages of his Life—His Work Advancing—
Missionaries—The "Dispersed in the Isles"—The Martyrs—How Calvin
Comforted them—The Collar of the Order of Martyrs—The Five Martyrs of
Lyons—Their Behavior at the Stake—Calvin Surveying the Field and the Fallen
around him—Counsels Princes—Edward VI.— Calvin's Letter to Somerset on the
Reformation of England—Letter to Edward VI.—Archbishop
Cranmer—Union—Calvin's Longings for it.
INTENSE interest still attached to the great movement and its
headquarters, the little town of Geneva, around which the clouds of war and danger were
gathering heavier every day, though an unseen Hand withheld them from bursting.
There sat the man whom the death of Luther had left the one great chief of the movement.
With undaunted brow and steadfast eye, he surveys the vast field around him, on which so
many dangers gather and so many conflicts are being waged. Assailed by all passions and by
every party, by the democracy below and by the kings above, the Reformer, nevertheless,
pursued his Herculean task, and saw his work year by year taking deeper root and extending
wider on all sides. Luther's energies declined as his years advanced, and he had the
mortification, before he went to his grave, of seeing the Reformation in Germany beginning
to lose the purity to which it owed the splendor of its early morning, and the power that
made it in its noon the ruler of the Teutonic nations. But Calvin's latter years were his
most triumphant, for neither did his powers decay nor his work stand still; on the
contrary, the one continued to strengthen, and the other to advance, till his last hour on
earth. His first years had been spent in elaborating the scheme of Christian doctrine: his
next were passed in constructing a spiritual machinery, through which the influence of his
doctrine might go forth in order to the purifying and elevating of society; hence his
efforts to hold Geneva, and to quell the infidel democracy, whose instincts taught it that
its greatest enemy was Calvin's Gospel, and that it must crush it or be crushed by it.
Having made good Geneva as a basis of Protestant operations, Calvin's third period was
passed in planting his system abroad, and guiding, by his writings and letters, the
Reformation in France, England, Switzerland, Poland, and other countries. There was no
land where Calvin was not present.
Geneva, while the Reformer lived in it, was continually opening its gates to give asylum
to the persecuted of other countries. The same gates were continually opening to let those
go forth who were returning to the field of labor, or it might be of martyrdom. We can
give here only a few instances. One day, in the summer of 1553, a missionary was
commissioned to carry a letter from Calvin, "To the faithful dispersed in some isles
of France." His name was Philibert Hamelin, and he was on his way to the coast of
Saintonge, where a young flock were much in want of some one to organise and instruct
them. Hamelin, a native of Tours, was the first preacher of the Reformed doctrine in
Saintes. He was seized in that town, but escaping death by almost a miracle, he came to
Geneva, where he followed the calling of a printer. But the ardor of his zeal would not
suffer him to remain in his asylum. He set out to revisit his brethren, "dispersed
among the isles," with this letter, in which Calvin, addressing these young converts,
said: "We are nowise of opinion that you should be in a hurry to partake of the Holy
Supper until you have some order established among you. . . Nay, it would not be lawful
for a man to administer the Sacraments to you, unless he recognised you as the flock of
Jesus Christ, and found among you the form of a Church." The devoted missionary, in
an apostolate of four years, organised their Churches. He never returned to the great
captain who had sent him forth, to tell what success had attended his labors. Taken anew,
he was burned alive at Bordeaux, the 18th April, 1557. [1]
Whilst there was one stake in the Place Champel, surrounding countries were lit up
with a multitude of blazing stakes. But there was not one of these piles at which Calvin
was not present, nor was there one of these sufferers who was not refreshed by his words
amid the flames. In the July of 1553 two confessors were expecting death in the prisons of
Lyons. Calvin received the tidings during the trial of Servetus, and when he was in the
thick of his contest with the Libertines. He hastened to their dungeon, as it were, and by
words from his own courageous yet tender heart comforted theirs. "That God," he
told them, "who had called them to the honor of maintaining His truth, would lead
them to martyrdom as by the hand." He bade them think of the "heavenly
immortality" to which the "cross and shame and death" conducted, and of Him
who waited, the moment these were ended, to wipe away all tears. One of these sufferers,
who had been reached by the words of Calvin, thus thanked him:—"I could not tell
you, sir and brother," wrote Louis Marsac, "the great comfort I received from
the letters which you sent to my brother, Denis Peloquin, who found means of passing them
to one of our brethren who was in an underground cell above me, and read them to me,
because I could not read them, inasmuch as I can see nothing in my dungeon. I pray you,
therefore, to persevere in aiding us always with like consolation, which invites us to
weep and pray." When the little company of martyrs, of which Louis Marsac was one,
were led forth to be burned, all appeared with halters round their necks except Louis. His
enemies had spared him this indignity on the ground of his being nobly born. But so far
from reckoning this as a favor, he even deemed the denial of it a dishonor, and asked why
he was refused the collar of that "excellent order" of martyrs.[2]
Of all the martyrdoms of the period, the most touching perhaps is that of "the
five martyrs of Lyons." Natives of France, and desirous of taking part in the
Reformation of their own country, they repaired to Lausanne to study theology and qualify
themselves for the ministry. Having completed their course, they received licence to
preach, and set out to begin their labors in France. They rested a few days in Geneva, and
then passed on to their destined field, their spirits invigorated, we can well believe, by
their brief stay in the capital of Protestantism, and especially by their converse with
its great chief. Light they were destined to impart to their native France, but not in the
way they had fondly hoped. On their journey to Lyons they met at the Bourg de Colonges,
nigh to L'Ecluse, a stranger who offered himself as their fellow-traveler. They harbored
no suspicion, and maintained no disguise in the company of their new acquaintance. Soon
after their arrival at Lyons, they were arrested and thrown into prison. Their companion
had betrayed them. Their fate having awakened great interest, powerful influence was used
in their behalf [3] at
the court of France. The Bernese Government interceded for "their scholars" with
the king. Some among the Romanists even, touched by their pure lives and their lovely
characters, interested themselves for their safety. Meanwhile their trial proceeded at
Lyons. The brutality of the judges was as conspicuous as the constancy of the prisoners.
From the sentence of the Lyonnese court, which adjudged them to death, they appealed to
the Parliament of Paris.
On the 1st of March, 1553, the decree arrived from the capital confirming the sentence of
the court below. So, then, it was by their burning pile, and not by the eloquence of their
living voice, that they were to aid in dispelling the darkness that brooded over their
native land. There was mourning in Lausanne and Geneva, and in other places on the shores
of the Leman, when it was known that those who had so lately gone forth from them, and for
whom they had augured a career of the highest usefulness, were so soon to meet a tragic
death.
"We have been, for some days past, in deeper anxiety and sadness than ever,"
writes Calvin to them, when he had learned the final decision of their persecutors.
Turning away from the throne of Henry II., "We shall," says he, "do our
duty herein by praying to Him that He may glorify Himself more and more in your constancy,
and that He may by the consolation of His Spirit sweeten and endear all that is bitter to
the flesh, and so absorb your spirits in Himself, that in contemplating that heavenly
crown you may be ready without regret to leave all that belongs to this world. If He has
promised to strengthen with patience those who suffer chastisement for their sins, how
much less will He be found wanting to those who maintain his quarrel! He who dwells in you
is stronger than the world." [4]
How calm these words, when we think who spoke them, and that they were spoken to
men about to expire in the fire! They breathe not the enthusiasm of feeling, but the
enthusiasm of faith. These five young men were to die for the Gospel, but this was an
every-day service in those days. Every disciple was supposed to be ready to lay down his
life, and to do so with the calm magnanimity of the soldier who does his duty and nothing
more. Calvin himself was prepared at any hour to walk to the stake with the same absence
of ostentation, the same obliviousness of doing a grand act, as if he had been stepping
into his pulpit. Was there, then, no enthusiasm in those days? Yes, enthusiasm indeed
there was; but it was an enthusiasm that sustained itself, from day to day and from hour
to hour, at so lofty a pitch that it could rise no higher. It could have no spasm, no
burst. Hence, neither was boast in the mouth of the men who did the act, nor applause in
the mouths of those who witnessed it. The spectacle is all the more sublime.
On the 16th of May the five young students were led to the fire. They died with a heroism
worthy of their age. "Being come to the place of execution," says Crespin,
"they ascended with a joyful heart the pile of wood, the two youngest first. The last
who ascended was Martial Alba, the eldest of the five, who had a long time been on both
his knees praying to the Lord. He asked Lieutenant Tignac to grant him a gift. The
lieutenant said to him, 'What willest thou?' He said to him, 'That I may kiss my brethren
before I die.' The lieutenant granted it to him. Then the said Martial kissed the four who
were already bound, saying to each of them, 'Adieu, adieu, my brother.' The fire was
kindled. The voices of the five confessors were heard still exhorting one another:
'Courage, my brethren, courage!' And these," continues Crespin, "were the last
words heard from the said five valiant champions and martyrs of the Lord."[5]
What, one cannot refrain from asking, were the thoughts of Calvin, as he was told
that another and another had fallen in the conflict? The feelings of a Caesar or of a
Napoleon, as he surveys the red field of his ambition, we can imagine. Every corpse
stretched out upon it, every drop of blood that moistens its soil, is a silent accusation,
and cries aloud against him. Far other were the feelings of Calvin as he cast his eye over
the field around him, where so many, and these the noblest and purest of their age,
languished in dungeons, or quivered on the rack, or were expiring amid flames. These were
not soldiers who had been dragged into battle, and who had died to place a crown upon the
brow of another. They were men who had been fighting the battles of their Savior, and who
in dying had won for themselves the crown of life. Nor did the Reformer for one moment
despair of a cause that was suffering these repeated tremendous losses.
Losses, did we say? Where and to whom was there loss? Not to the martyr, who received an
eternal life in place of the mortal one which he had laid down; nor to the cause, which
waxed stronger with each new martyr, and received another and another pledge of final
victory with every stake that was planted and every drop of blood that was spilt. That
such was the effect of these martyrdoms, we quote the testimony of one who was no friend
to Protestantism. "The fires were lighted everywhere," says Florimond de
Raemond, "and as, on the one hand, the just severity of the law restrained the people
within their duty, on the other, the obstinate resolution of those who were dragged to the
gibbet astonished many. For they saw weak and delicate women seeking for torment in order
to prove their faith, and on their way to death exclaiming, 'Only Christ, the Savior,' and
singing some psalm; young maidens walking more gaily to execution than to the
bridal-chamber; men rejoicing to behold the terrible preparations and instruments of
death, and, half-burned and roasted, remaining like rocks against the waves of pain. These
sad and constant sights excited some perturbation, not only in the souls of the simple but
of the great, who were not able to persuade themselves that truth was not on the side of
such as maintained it with so much resolution at the cost of their life."[6]
The same Calvin who was by the side of the martyr on the scaffold was also with the
statesman in his cabinet, and at times at the foot of the throne giving counsel to
princes. Henry VIII. had died in 1547, and with him expired that peculiar scheme of Reform
by which he aimed at abolishing the jurisdiction of the Pope, yet preserving the religion
of Popery. His son, Edward VI., mounted the throne in his tenth year. The Duke of
Somerset, now Lord Protector, had educated the young prince in the principles of the
Protestant faith. The fine talents and noble character of the youthful monarch excited the
highest hopes in Calvin, and he strove to win him more and more for the Gospel. Nor were
the hopes which the Reformer cherished disappointed. It was during the reign of this pious
prince, and the regency of Edward Seymour, Lord Protector, that the Reformation was
established in England. Hence the correspondence of Calvin with Somerset, to whom he
dedicated, June, 1548, his Commentary on the First Epistle to Timothy. And hence, too, his
remarkable letter to the same statesman in October of the same year, in which he states
fully his sentiments touching what was necessary to complete the Reformation in England.
This matter will come before us in its proper place. Meanwhile we note that the Reformer,
in his letter to Lord Protector Somerset, insists on three things as necessary to the
moral transformation of England: first, the preaching of the pure Word of God; second, the
rooting out of abuses; and, third, the correction of vices and scandalous offenses. As
regarded the first, the preaching of the Gospel, Calvin laid stress upon the manner as
well as the doctrine—upon the life as well as the purity of the pulpit. "The
people," says he, "are to 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, Monseigneur," continues
the Reformer, "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," Calvin goes on to say, "how St. 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
rhetoric in order to show themselves off, but the Spirit of God must resound in their
voice." In short, Calvin desiderated two things—"a good trumpet" and
"a certain sound"—if the Lord Protector would reap fruit of his labors, and
the Reformation be permanent in England.[7]
When at last the intrigues of his rivals prevailed against him, and the good Duke
of Somerset had to mount the scaffold, Calvin addressed the young king, whose heart was
not less set on the Reformation of England than had been that of the Lord Protector. The
Reformer dedicated to him two of his works, the Commentary on Isaiah, and the Commentary
on the Catholic Epistles. Edward VI. was at this time only fourteen years of age, but his
precocious intellect enabled him to appreciate and even to judge of the works the Reformer
had laid at his feet.
The bearer of these two books, the pastor Nicolas des Gallars, was received with marked
respect at the court of England. The books were accompanied by a letter to the king, in
which Calvin spoke with the plainness and honesty of the Reformer, yet, mindful that he
was addressing a king, he adopted the tone not of a master but of a father.
Holding up to him the example of Josiah, he exhorted the young monarch to "follow up
the good work so happily begun;" he cautioned him against viewing it as achieved, and
that it was "not in a day that such an abyss of superstition as the Papacy is to be
purged." "True it is, sire," said he, "that there are things
indifferent which we may allowably tolerate, but then we must always insist that
simplicity and order be observed in the use of ceremonies, so that the clear light of the
Gospel be not obscured by them, as if we were still under the shadows of the law, and then
that there may be nothing allowed that is not in agreement and conformity to the order
established by the Son of God. For God does not allow his name to be trifled with, mixing
up silly frivolities with his holy and sacred ordinances." "There is another
point, sire, of which you ought to take a special charge, namely, that the poor flocks may
not be destitute of pastors." In fine, he exhorted the king to have a care for the
efficiency and purity of the schools and universities, for he had been informed that
"there are many young people supported on the college bursaries, who, instead of
giving good hope of service in the Church, do not conceal that they are opposed to the
true religion." The Reformer entreated the king to take order therein, "to the
effect that property which ought to be held sacred be not converted to profane uses, and
far less to nourish venomous reptiles, who would desire nought better than to infect
everything for the future. For in this way the Gospel would always be kept back by these
schools, which ought to be the very pillar thereof."[8]
The pious king had for primate the erudite Cranmer. The archbishop had cowered
under the capricious tyranny of Henry VIII., but now, moving no longer in the cold and
withering shade of that monarch, Cranmer was himself again; and not only was he laboring
zealously to complete the work of Reformation in England, he was also holding out the hand
to all the Reformers and Reformed Churches on the Continent. He was at that time revolving
a grand Protestant union. He desired that the friends of the Gospel in all lands should
come together, and deduce from the Word of God a scheme of Christian doctrine which all
might confess and hold, and which might be, to the generation then living and to the ages
to come, a standard round which the Church might rally.[9] At Trent the Church of Rome was massing and marshalling her
troops; the Primate of England thought that the Protestant Church ought also to close her
ranks, and, presenting an unbroken front to the foe, be ready to repel his attack, or to
advance her own triumphs into regions where her banners had not yet been displayed.
Cranmer communicated his idea to the Reformer of Geneva.
Calvin, in his reply, intimated his approval of his "just and wise design," and
said that for his own part, if he could further thereby the work of union, "he would
not grudge to cross even ten seas;" and he went on to indicate the existence of
certain principles that lay far down, even at the bottom of society, and which no eye save
his own then saw, but which have since come to the surface, and yielded that noxious and
bitter crop that he predicted they would if not obviated, "the distemper" even
of "a stupid inquisitiveness alternating with that of fearless extravagance."
The Reformer saw that the future of Christendom was menaced by "terrible
disorders," not more by difference in religious sentiments than by that speculative
philosophic spirit which contravenes the laws of true science not less than it contemns
the authority of the Scriptures. In short, Calvin foresaw, even at that early period,
should Protestantism fail, a pantheistic Europe.
Soon after this interchange of letters, the death of Edward VI. and the accession of Queen
Mary changed the whole face of affairs. The disastrous events which now took the place of
those bright triumphs that the good archbishop had judged to be so near, belong to a
subsequent period of our history.
CHAPTER 24 Back to Top
CALVIN'S MANIFOLD LABORS.
Dedication of his Commentaries and Works—Care of the Churches— Poland,
etc.—England and Elizabeth—Scotland—John Knox—Similarity between
Calvin and Knox—The Secret of their Power—Immense Labors of Calvin—Calvin
and Innocent III. Compared and Contrasted.
THE heart of Calvin must have been unspeakably saddened and
weighed down, as day after day refugees arrived in Geneva, telling him that another and
another of England's Reformers and scholars had perished at the stake, and that another
and yet another of the rites of Rome had been re-introduced into that kingdom where the
light of Reformation had begun to shine so clearly. But alike in the foul day as in the
fair, the Reformer must go on with his work. He stood at the helm, and if the storm
thickened, it was only the more necessary that he should turn his eye to every quarter of
the horizon, and counsel, warn, and encourage, as the circumstances of each of the
Protestant countries required. "He bore," says Beza, "all these Churches
upon his shoulders." Which of them was it that his voice did not reach? We find him
in 1545 renewing his intercourse with the distant Austrian provinces. He dedicated his
Catechism to the Protestant communities there, with the view of establishing a union in
doctrine between them and the Church of Geneva. His watchful eye did not overlook Poland.
In 1549 he dedicated to the monarch of that country, Sigismund Augustus, his Commentary on
the Hebrews. He exhorted him to give himself to the service of Christ, which places us
"in the rank of angels," and to follow the footsteps of his father Sigismund,
who, while persecution raged in many other countries, kept his hands unstained with blood.
Denmark and Sweden also shared Calvin's solicitude. In the year 1552 he dedicated the
first half of his Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles to the excellent Christian I.;
and the second half he dedicated in 1554 to the son of that monarch, Frederick.
Amid the crowned heads whom he thus acknowledges, the friends of his youth and the
refugees of the Gospel were not forgotten. The first part of his Commentary on the Epistle
to the Corinthians was dedicated, in 1546, to the Sieur de Bourgoyne; and, ten years
later, another part to an illustrious Neapolitan, the Marquis Caraccioli, a refugee in
Geneva. These dedications are finely conceived. The writer is forgetful neither of their
rank nor of his own greatness. The Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians was
dedicated to Melchior Wolmar, and he accompanied it with an allusion, at once graceful and
grateful, to the days he had spent with him in his youth at Bourges. The Commentaries on
the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians were dedicated to
the young Duke Christopher of Wurtemberg, to encourage him to persevere in the Reformed
path, reminding him, as he had said to the youthful Edward of England, that "it was a
great matter to be a Christian king, but a yet greater to be a Christian." The
Commentary on the First Epistle to the Thessalonians was dedicated, in 1551, to the aged
Mathurin Cordier, his early revered teacher, now principal of the Gymnasium at Lausanne.
This was his public acknowledgment of what he owed to the man who had first opened to him
the gate of knowledge, and guided him in the path with so much skill and pains. What a
deeply affectionate and truthful nature do we discover in all this![1]
Letters and evangelists was Calvin daily sending to the Church of France. The
"Shepherd of Christendom," he was specially the apostle of the French Church.
Born in that land, but driven out of it, he was here on its border, in his Alp-environed
city, to direct and watch over its Reformation. The Protestants of that great country
would have been far happier had they lent a profounder ear to his counsels. Their
scaffolds would have had more victims, it may be, but the slain of their battlefields
would have been fewer. His messengers also crossed the Alps, with letters to Renee,
Duchess of Ferrara. Encompassed by the spies of Rome, watched by a bigoted husband, with
few near her to succor her efforts, or share her longings for the emancipation of her fair
Italy, the words of Calvin must have been to the grief-stricken queen as "cold
waters" to one athirst. The Pyrenees no more than the Alps could confine his
sympathies. He corresponded with the Queen of Navarre, Margaret of VaIois, and with her
illustrious daughter, Jeanne d'Albret. We do not wonder that the eye of the Reformer
should rest with special delight on the little kingdom governed by these wise and virtuous
princesses, for there the Protestant vine, so sorely buffeted by tempests in many other
lands, flourished in peace, and yielded abundance of happy fruits in the order, the
industry, and the morality of the region. And now, again, his attention was attracted to
England. Mary was dead, and Elizabeth was on the throne. To the foot of that throne came
the Reformer, to instruct, with a now fully-matured wisdom and prescience, the great
English sovereign and her ministers, how that faith, planted in their country by Wicliffe,
might be revived, and that goodly Church order set up by Cranmer, but overthrown by the
furious tempests that had since swept over the kingdom, might be restored and completed.
It is on a country more to the north, then distinct from England, now happily one with it,
that the eye of the great chief of Protestantism rests with the greatest delight of all.
He had, perhaps, a presentiment that it was that country, rather than France, in which his
grand idea was to be realised. A son of that land had already found his way to Geneva. The
keen eye of Calvin quickly discerned what sort of man the stranger was. The leonine
lineaments of his soul, the robust powers of his intellect stood out to his view; he was
the likest to himself of all the men around him, and the two cleaved to each other, and
became knit together in the bonds of a holy friendship. Henceforward it was to be Calvin
and Knox. Alone, unapproached, towering above even the loftiest of the men around him,
stood the Reformer of Geneva; nevertheless the same two qualities that constitute the
basis of the character of Calvin constitute also that of Knox. The first is absolute faith
in God, the second is absolute submission to his Word. In these two men, these twin
principles existed to a degree of strength and intensity which we find in no other of the
Reformers, Luther excepted. These two master-principles were the root that nourished all
their virtues—their wisdom, their fearless courage, their inflexible adherence to
truth, and that unconquered and unconquerable energy with which they pursued their great
task till it was fully achieved.
A strong, capacious, and versatile intellect did both these men possess. This helped them
in their work; it was like a sharp sword in the hand of a mighty man. But we must never
forget that the influence by which Knox regenerated Scotland, and Calvin regenerated
Christendom, was not an intellectual force, but a moral, a Divine power. Their submission
to the Scriptures gave them access to the deep fountains of that celestial force, and
enabled them to bring it into play in all its freshness, fullness, and purity. To propel
this quickening energy through a dead world was the work of Calvin. It was his work from
day to day. Sitting in his closet, he sent abroad the arrows of light all over
Christendom. It was by the clearness, the tranquility, and the beauty of his Commentaries
that he acted upon the intellect and conscience of the world. Thus he maintained the
battle. With these shafts he smote his foes, and overturned the kingdom of darkness.
When we think of his letters, written on affairs of the greatest weight, addressed to the
first men of position and intellect in Europe—some of them in the graceful and
concise Latin of a Cicero or a Seneca, others of them in French that formed the precursor
and model of the age of Montaigne—so numerous are they, that it might have been
supposed he wrote letters and did nothing besides. When we turn to his Commentaries, so
voluminous, so solid, and so impregnated with the spirituality, and fire, and fragrance of
the Divine Word; —again it would seem as if we had before us the labors of a
life-time. "The Commentaries of Calvin," says Bungener, "mark a revolution
in the study of the Bible, and on that account occupy a distinguished place, not only in
the history of theology, but in that of the human mind.[2] These immortal productions are above all else that he wrote or
did. Calvin—the Calvin that lived and acted on the world of the sixteenth
century—lives and acts on that of the nineteenth through these Commentaries.
When, again, we think of him in the pulpit, where he appeared, we may say, every day; when
we think of him in the Consistory, where he was present every week; in the academy,
whither he often went to address the youth; in the council-chamber, to which he was
frequently summoned to give advice on affairs of the State; when we think of his combats
with the Libertines, whose faction he overthrew; of his hospitalities and attentions to
the refugees of all nations; of the foreign Churches which devolved upon him the task of
their organization; of the hours spent in meditation and prayer—and all accomplished
in a feeble and sickly body—we find once more that we have enough of work to fill a
life-time, although it had stood alone; and we stand amazed when we reflect that it was
all done in a life which, when closed, did not number fifty-five years complete.[3]
Modern Church history presents us with two examples of the very loftiest style of
governing. Both soar immensely above the ordinary and vulgar methods of rule. The one
presents itself at the meridian of the Papacy, the other is seen in the morning of
Protestantism. The two stand over against each other, a beacon and lesson to mankind. We
refer to Innocent III. of Rome, and John Calvin of Geneva.
Innocent professed to govern the world by methods purely spiritual, and on sanctions
altogether Divine. A man of comprehensive genius, and untiring in his application to
business, he wrote letters, promulgated edicts, convoked Councils, perfected the doctrine
of his Church by enacting transubstantiation, and completed its govermnent by the
establishment of the Inquisition. In virtue of this machinery, more especially by the
terrible sentence of interdict, he made himself the master of all the thrones of Europe;
his will was obeyed to the remotest extremities of Christendom.
John Calvin held with Innocent that the will of God, as made known in the Scriptures,
ought to be the supreme law on earth. But the results that attended this principle as
enthroned at Rome were just the opposite of those that flowed from it as established at
Geneva, and worked by Calvin. Innocent cast down thrones; Calvin imparted stability and
dignity to them. Innocent's rule sunk the nations into serfdom, Calvin's raised them to
liberty. Innocent scattered the seeds of barbarism; Calvin sowed those of virtue and
intelligence. Why this markedly different result from what professed to be the same
government, in its foundation, in its maxims, and in its aims? It all lies in this:
Innocent shut the Word of God to the nations, by arrogating to himself the office of its
sole infallible interpreter; Calvin threw open the sacred volume, by asserting the right
of all to read and interpret it for themselves. He showed them, too, the road by which
they would arrive at a knowledge of its true meaning, and thus while Innocent closed,
Calvin opened the sluices of Divine influence on the world. Or, to express the difference
more briefly, Calvin governed by God; Innocent governed as God.
CHAPTER 25 Back to Top
FINAL VICTORY AND GLORY OF GENEVA.
The Libertines Renew the Attack—Social Disorders—The Spiritual Supremacy of the
Consistory the Key of Calvin's Position—Cannot be Abandoned—Council finally
Concedes it—Flank Attack—The Libertines Complain of the Sermons—of the
Publications of Calvin—of the Refugees—Fifty Refugees Enrolled as
Citizens—Perrin Excites a Tumult—Projected Massacre of the
Refugees—Miscarriage of the Attempt—Executions—Perrin
Flees—Victory—Glory of Geneva.
WHILE Calvin was counselling monarchs, drafting plans of
Reform for statesmen, organising Churches, corresponding with theologians in all
countries, and laboring to harmonize their views of Divine truth—in short, acting as
the moral legislator of Christendom—he was the object of unceasing and bitter attack
on the part of a faction of the Genevese. They detested his presence in their town, openly
insulted him on their streets, and ceaselessly intrigued to drive him from Geneva, the
city which he had made famous throughout Europe, and which, the moment that he quitted it,
would sink into its orighlal obscurity.
We have seen the victory which Calvin, at the peril of his life, won over the Libertines
in the Cathedral of St. Peter's, on Sunday, the 3rd of September, 1553. The storm lulled
for a little while, but in a few months it was renewed. Those who were guilty of scandals,
and of course were visited with the censures of the Church, repaired to the Council, and
complained of the rigor of the Consistory. The ministers were summoned to justify their
proceedings—a hard task before magistrates, some of whom were hostile, and almost all
of whom were lukewarm in the cause of the spiritual discipline. Might not Calvin, it may
be said, have obviated these complaints by separating the Church from the State, in the
way of distinguishing between citizens and Church-members, and holding only the latter
amenable to the ecclesiastical discipline? This practically was what the Reformer was
aiming at doing. By excluding the profane from the Lord's Supper, he was separating the
Church from the world; but he was hampered by two circumstances—first, by the
theocratic government existing in Geneva, and which he found there in its rudimental state
when he entered it; and secondly, by the Libertines, who resented their exclusion from
Church privileges as an affront and wrong.
The Libertine faction, scotched but not killed, became bold in proportion as they saw the
Council was timid. "See," said they, "how we are governed by French edicts
and by Calvin." One of its opponents said of the Consistory that "it was more
savage than Satan himself,[1] but
he hoped soon to tame it. Beza tells us that the revolutionary party made obscene songs on
the Word of God. Sometimes mock processions passed along the street, singing profane
parodies of the hymns of the Church.[2] "The Libertines," says Roset, "commenced the year
1555 with new manifestations of their old wickedness. Having supped together, to the
number of ten, on the night of the 9th January, they took each a candle, and paraded the
streets, singing, at the full stretch of their voices, the psalms, interlaced with
jeers."[3] One
day as Calvin was returning from preaching in the suburb of St. Gervais, he was hustled on
the bridge of the Rhone by a knot of miscreants who had gathered there. He very quietly
rebuked their insolence by the remark that "the bridge was wide enough for them
all." We find him about this time writing to Bullinger that "his position was
become almost unbearable." We hear him pouring out his deep sighs, and expressing,
like Melancthon, his wish to die. This was much from the strong man. The days had come,
foreseen by him, and foretold in his own expressive language to Farel, when he should have
to "offer his bleeding heart as a sacrifice to God." But, though his heart bled,
his spirit, ever undaunted, maintained the conflict with a patience and fortitude not to
be overcome.
The Reformer returned to Geneva from his banishment on the express promise of the Council
that the Consistory should be supreme in all ecclesiastical causes. Without this provision
Calvin would never again have entered the gates of that city. Not that he wished power for
himself. "I would rather die a hundred times," said he, "than appropriate
that authority which is the common property of the Church."[4] But unless the sentences of the spiritual court were final, how
could order and moral rule be upheld? and without the supremacy of moral law, of what use
would his presence in Geneva be to Protestantism? But this essential point was all the
more the object of attack by the Libertines.
Amy Perrin, the personal foe of the Reformer, once more led in this second battle.[5] "It is to us," said
Perrin and his troop, "an astonishing thing that a sovereignty should exist within a
sovereignty. Good sense seems to us to require that the sovereign authority should be
entire, and that all questions and parties should be under the rule of the Seigneury. Not
otherwise can we preserve that liberty which we have so dearly bought. You are reviving
the tyranny of the Pope and the prelates," continued Perrin, "under this new
name of spiritual jurisdiction."[6] "No," replied the pastors, who had assembled in the
council-chamber, and were speaking through the mouth of Calvin, "No; we only claim
obedience to the rule of the Bible, the law of Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church. He
has given to us the power to bind and loose—in other words, to preach the Word and to
administer the Sacraments. The magistrates have no more right to forbid us the exercise of
this power, than we have to invade the government and civil jurisdiction. To us holy
things have been committed, and we shall take care that the Table of the Lord is not
dishonored by the presence at it of the profane."[7]
The pastors fortified their position by appealing to the separation between things
sacred and things civil, that existed under the Old Testament. To the family of Aaron had
all things appertaining to worship been assigned; to the house of David had the civil
government been committed. It appertained not to the most powerful of the Jewish monarchs
to perform the humblest service at the altar; and those kings who, forgetting this
distinction, presumed to bring their authority into the temple, were smitten with
judgment. "So far," said Calvin in conclusion, "is the power of the pastors
from being a menace to the liberty of the republic, that it is its best protection.
Liberty without the Gospel is but a miserable slavery."[8]
These reasonings were not without their effect on the magistrates. By a majority of
suffrages, the Council resolved that its former edict should remain in force—in other
words, that the arrangement made with Calvin when he returned to Geneva—namely, that
the final decision in all Church offenses be with the Consistory—should be
maintained.[9] Geneva
was still secured to the Reformer. The basis on which he rested his great work, both in
Geneva itself and throughout Christendom, the Libertines had not yet been able to
overturn.
They did not, however, accept of their defeat and desist from the war. Baffled in this
front attack, they next assailed the Reformer on the flank. "We have too many
ministers," said they, raising their voices to a loud pitch. "We have too many
ministers and too many sermons." There were then only four pastors in Geneva; but the
Libertines thought that they were four too many, and although they did not demand their
entire suppression as yet, they modestly proposed that they should be reduced to two. As
regarded the Churches, they would not lock their doors outright, but they would at once
abolish the sermon, in which their vices were branded with a pointedness and lashed with a
severity since transferred from the pulpit to the press and the platform. They were
willing that a harmless kind of worship should go on. They would permit the people to be
taught the "Creed," the "Lord's Prayer," and the "Ten
Commandments." This amount of instruction, they thought, might be safely tolerated.
As to those floods of exposition poured forth upon them weekday and Sunday, they saw no
need for such: it was dangerous; and the Council ought to raise legal dykes within which
to confine this torrent of pious eloquence.[10]
The Libertines next turned their attention to the correction of another great
abuse, as they deemed it. The liberty of the press found no favor in the eyes of these
champions of freedom. What is the use, they asked, of so many Commentaries and printed
books? We must fetter the pen of this Calvin, for the State of Geneva is not able to bear
the many books he is sending forth. We must stop this plethora of writing and publishing.[11]
Such was their estimate of that mighty genius, in the light of which kings and
statesmen were glad to walk! We may imagine what would have been the fame of Geneva, and
what the state of letters and civilization in Europe in the next century, if the
Libertines instead of Calvin had triumphed in this controversy.
There arose yet another cause of complaint and quarrel. The refugees who sought asylum in
Geneva were at this time increasing from week to week. Weeded out by the hand of
persecution, they were the men of the purest morals, of the richest culture, and the
noblest souls which the surrounding countries could boast. Not a few were men of the
highest rank, and of very large possessions, although in almost every case they arrived
penniless.[12]
The little State began to inscribe their names on the registers of its citizens.
The proudest kingdom would have done itself an honor by enrolling such men among its
subjects. Not so did Perrin and his faction account it.
"They are beggars who have come here to eat the bread of the Genevese."—so
did they speak of those who had forsaken all for the Gospel—"they are Calvin's
allies, who flock hither to support him in tyrannizing over the children of the soil; they
are usurping the rights of the ancient burgesses and destroying the liberties of the town;
they are the enemies of the republic, and what so likely as that they will purchase their
way back into their own country by betraying Geneva to the King of France?" These and
similar accusations—the ready invention of coarse and malignant natures—were
secretly whispered among the populace, and at last openly preferred before the Council,
against the distinguished men of almost every nationality now assembled in Geneva.
Early in the year 1555 the matter came to a head, and we note it more particularly because
it brought on the final struggle which overturned the faction of the Libertines, and left
the victory wholly with Calvin. At one sitting the Council admitted as many as fifty
foreigners, all men of known worth, to the rights of citizenship. Perrin and his followers
raised a louder cry than ever. "The scum of Europe," "the supporters of
Calvin's despotism," are possessing themselves of our heritage. These were the
epithets by which they chose to designate the new burgesses. These men had not, indeed,
been born on the soil of the republic, but Geneva had no better citizens than they;
certainly none more willing to obey her law, or more ready to shed their blood for her
liberty if occasion should require. The Gospel, which they had embraced, made the
territory of Geneva more their native land than the country they had left. But the
Libertines understood nothing of all this. They went to the Council and complained, but
the Council would not listen to them. They carried their appeal to the populace, and at
this bar that appeal was more successful.[13]
On the 16th May, Perrin returned to the Council with a larger number of followers,
chiefly fishermen and boatmen, armed with huge double-handled swords.[14] This motley host was dismissed
with the same answer as before. The malcontents paraded the streets all day, calling on
the citizens to bestir themselves, and save the town, which was on the eve of being sacked
by the foreigners. The better class of citizens paid no attention to this cry of "The
wolf!" and remained quiet in their homes; but the ranks of the rioters were swelled
by numbers of the lower orders, whose patriotism had been stimulated by the free rations
of wine and food which were served out to them.[15]
On Friday, the 18th May, the heads of the party met in a tavern with a certain
number, says Bonivard, of "brawling companions." The more moderate, who may be
presumed to have been also the more sober, were for convoking the Council-General; but the
more violent [16] would
hear of nothing but the massacre of all the refugees of religion, and their supporters.
The Sunday following, when the citizens would be all at church,[17] was fixed on for the execution of this horrible plot.
The eagerness of the Libertines to consummate their crime caused the plot to miscarry. The
very next night after their meeting, the fumes of the wine, we may charitably believe, not
having as yet exhaled, the mob-patriots rushed into the street with arms in their hands to
begin their dreadful work. "The French, the French," they shouted, "are
taking the town! Slay all, slay all!" But not one of the refugees was to be seen.
"The Lord," says Calvin, "had poured a deep sleep upon them." But the
other citizens rushed armed into the street. There was a great uproar, shouts, cries, and
clashing of arms; but fortunately the affray passed without bloodshed. "God,"
says Ruchat, "who watches over the affairs of men, and who wished to preserve Geneva,
did not permit Perrin to accomplish his design."[18]
The Council assembled in a few days, and then measures were taken to bring the
seditious to punishment, and prevent the peace of the city being broken by similar
outrages in time to come. Four heads fell beneath the axe. Perrin's also would have
fallen, had he not timeously cared for its safety by flight. With him fled all those who
felt that they were too deeply compromised to presume on pardon. The rest were banished,
and found refuge on the territory of Bern. The issue of this affair determined the future
fortunes of Geneva.
From being a nest of Libertines, who would have speedily wasted their own and their city's
strength by their immoral principles and their disorderly lives, and who would have
plunged Geneva into its former vassalage, riveting more hopelessly than ever its old yoke
upon its neck, this small but ancient town was, by this turn of affairs, rescued to become
the capital of Protestantism—the metropolis of a moral empire.
Here, not in state, like a Roman cardinal, but in the lowliness of a simple pastor, dwelt,
not the monarch of that empire—for monarch it has not on earth—but the presiding
mind, the directing genius of Protestantism. From this center were propagated those
energies and influences which, mightier than armies, were rending the shackles from the
human soul, and calling nations from their tomb. Within its walls the elite of Europe was
assembling; and as another and yet another illustrious stranger presented himself at its
gates, and crossed its threshold, the brilliant intellectual glory of Geneva gathered an
additional brightness, and its moral potency waxed stronger day by day. To it all eyes
were turned, some in admiration and love, others in hatred and fear. Within it were born
those great thoughts which, sent forth in letters, in pamphlets, in great tomes, were as
light to roll back the darkness—bolts to discomfit the enemy, and pour confusion upon
the champions of error. Protestant troops are continually passing out at its gates, girded
only with the sword of the Spirit, to assail the strongholds of darkness, and add new
provinces to the kingdom of the Gospel. As realm after realm is won, there goes forth from
this same city a rescript for its organization and government; and that rescript meets an
obedience more prompt and hearty than was ever accorded to the edicts sent forth from the
proud mistress of the ancient world for the molding of those provinces which her arms had
subjugated.
What an astonishing phenomenon must the sudden rise of this little town have appeared to
the men of those times! How portentous to the friends of the Old religion! It had not been
built up by human hands; it was not defended by human weapons; yet here it stood, a great
lighthouse in the center of Christendom, a mother of Churches, a nurse of martyrs, a
school of evangelists, an impregnable asylum of the persecuted, a font of civilization, an
abode of letters and arts; a great moral tribunal, where the actions of all men were
weighed, and in whose inexorably just and righteous awards men heard the voice of a higher
tribunal, and were enabled to read by anticipation the final judgment of posterity, and
even that of the great Supreme.
This was what Calvin's victory had brought him. He might well deem that it had not been
too dearly bought. Truly it was worth all the anxieties and insults he had borne, all the
toil and agony he had endured, all the supplications and tears he had poured out to
achieve it. Nine years had he been in gaining it, nine years were to be given him to turn
it to account.
CHAPTER 26 Back to Top
GENEVA AND ITS INFLUENCE IN EUROPE.
Peace of Geneva—Geneva and Calvin become One—Testimony of Knox and others to the
Church of Geneva—The Sundays of Geneva—The Libertines and Bern—Bolsec and
Castalio—Calvin's Care of the Church of France—Preachers sent to it—Labors
in Organising Churches— Calvin Counsels the French Protestants to Eschew
Arms—Martyrs, not Soldiers, wanted—Forged Letters— Constitution and
Organization of the French Protestant Church—Amazing Growth of Protestantism in
France.
CALVIN had made good his foothold at last. He had fought for
this little town as conqueror never fought for mightiest empire, and now it was his own.
Geneva had been rescued from the base uses to which the Libertines had destined it, and
was now consecrated to the noblest of all ends. It was to be, not the head-quarters of a
philosophy that would have demoralised Christendom, but the temple of a faith that was to
regenerate and exalt it. It was to be, not the beacon to lure to the whirlpool of
revolution, but the light that would guide the nations to the haven of stability and
glory.
The Reformer had now peace. But his condition can be justly styled peace only when
compared with the tempests of the nine previous years. Of these he had feelingly and
compendiously said, "that while everywhere the Church was agitated, at Geneva it was
tossed as was the Ark on the billows." It was a true description; but the calm had
come at last. The Ark had found its Ararat, and now within that city, for the possession
of which two interests had so stoutly contended, the fierce winds had gone down, and the
waves had subsided into rest.
Calvin now proceeded to make Geneva fit for the grand purposes for which he had destined
her. And Geneva willingly surrendered herself to be fashioned as the Reformer wished; her
life she permitted to be absorbed in his life, feeling that, with him was inseparably
bound up her order, her grandeur, nay, her very existence, so far as concerned every good
and useful object. Her law, her Council, her citizens, all tacitly consented to be parts
of the great Reformer—the ministries through which he operated on Christendom. We
have the testimony of a noble eye-witness to the state of Geneva at this period. "In
my heart," says Knox, in a letter to his friend Mr. Locke, "I could have wished,
yea, and cannot cease to wish, that it might please God to guide and conduct you to this
place, where I neither fear nor eshame to say is the most perfect school of Christ that
ever was in the earth since the days of the apostles. In other places I confess Christ to
be truly preached; but manners and religion to be so sincerely reformed, I have not yet
seen in any other place beside.[1] Farel
bore similar testimony to the flourishing condition of Geneva after its many perils.
"I was lately at Geneva," he says, "and so delighted was I that I could
scarce tear myself away. I would rather be last in Geneva than first in any other place.
Were I not prevented by the Lord, and by my love for my congregation, nothing would hinder
me from ending my days there." Drelincourt expressed the same admiration a hundred
years after.[2]
If there was peace in the days of Calvin within Geneva, there were ambushes all
around. The first trouble was created by the banished Libertines. Bern took the part of
these exiles in the quarrel, declaring that they had been guilty of no crime, and
demanding of the Council and citizens of Geneva that they should give satisfaction to
those they had expelled, and receive them back. It may be conjectured that there was in
all this a little jealousy on the part of the powerful Bern of the rising glory of Geneva.
The little republic replied to this haughty demand by expelling the families of the
Libertines, and forbidding the return of the banished under pain of death. It was now
feared that the Libertines, supported by Bern, meditated re-entering Geneva by force of
arms. The territory of Bern bordered with that of Geneva, and the Libertines stationed
themselves on that part of it which lay nearest the city, and offered daily menaces and
petty annoyances. They resorted to the bridge of the Arve, and mocked and jeered at the
Genevese who had occasion to pass that way.[3] The citizens, irritated beyond measure, were often on the point of
rushing out and punishing these insolences, but the Council restrained them.[4] The matter continued in an
uneasy and dangerous condition for some time, but a sudden turn in the politics of Europe,
which menaced both cities with a common danger, brought in the issue deliverance to
Geneva.
The battle of St. Quentin, in Normandy, was fought about this time. In this fight the arms
of Charles of Spain were victorious over those of Henry II. of France. Philibert Emmanuel,
Prince of Piedmont, who commanded the Spanish army, was the heir of the titles and rights
of his father Charles, Duke of Savoy; but he inherited the titles only; the estates had
gone from his house, and were now partly in the hands of the King of France, and partly in
possession of Bern, and other Swiss cantons. The French king being now humbled, the Prince
of Piedmont deemed this a favorable moment for reclaiming his hereditary dominions. He
issued an edict to that effect, and immediately thereafter dispatched a body of eight
thousand lanzknechts, or lancers, to establish his authority over his former subjects. The
alarm was great throughout Switzerland, and more especially in Geneva and Bern. The
Bernese had now other things to think of than the quarrel into which the banished
Libertines had led them. This last matter gradually went to sleep; and thus Geneva, by
this shifting in the great European winds, was delivered without the necessity of striking
a single blow.[5]
The affairs of Bolsec and Castalio belong to biography rather than to history. Both
of these men opposed Calvin on the doctrine of predestination. Both of them interrupted
him publicly when preaching in St. Peter's. The Council had them seized, on the ground of
the maintenance of the public peace, rather than on the ground of difference of doctrine.
The result was that both were banished from Geneva, never to return. This punishment,
which has been laid at the door of the Reformer, has been denounced as harsh. But we ought
to keep in mind that Bolsec and Castalio were not Genevese, banished from their native
land; they were foreigners who had resided in Geneva, the one a few years, the other only
a few months.[6] "As
to those who are indignant that Bolsec should even have been banished," says
Bungener, "we know not what to say to them, unless that they are completely ignorant
how the question stood in regard to the Reformation and to Geneva—especially to
Geneva. To wish that she had opened her gates to all the variations and daring flights of
religious thought, is to wish that that great lever, the Reformation, had without a
fulcrum lifted the world."[7]
Stationed just outside the French territory, the Reformer was able, from this citadel in
which God had placed him, to keep constant watch over the Protestant Church of France.
During the nine years he had yet to live, that Church was the object of his daily care. He
had found her in her cradle, and he nursed her into strength. It was for his counsel she
waited when any emergency arose, and it was to his voice and pen that she looked for
defense when danger threatened. She revered him as her father. The first necessity of
Christendom, in the opinion of Calvin, was the Gospel. Accordingly, it was one of his
chief labors to prepare, in the school of Geneva, qualified preachers who should go forth,
and sow everywhere the seed of the kingdom. Many of these missionaries selected France as
their field of labor. Thither were they followed by the instructions and prayers of the
great chief from whose feet they had gone forth; and the consciousness that his eye was
upon them, helped to make them zealous in labor and courageous in death, which so many of
them were called to endure in the discharge of their ministry. We have two proofs that
great numbers offered themselves to this most inviting but very hazardous field. The first
is the letter which the King of France, Charles IX., in January, 1561, sent to Geneva,
complaining of the preachers who had come from thence, and calling upon the Council to
recall them. The second is the letter of Calvin to Bullinger, in the May following, which
reveals incidentally what a powerful propaganda Geneva had become, and shows us the
soldiers of the Cross daily setting out from her gates to spread the triumphs of the
Gospel. "It is incredible," writes Calvin, "with what ardor our friends
devote themselves to the spread of the Gospel. As greedily as men before the Pope solicit
him for benefices, do they ask for employment in the Churches beneath the Cross. They
besiege my door to obtain a portion of the field to cultivate. Never had monarch courtiers
more eager than mine. They dispute about the stations as of the kingdom of Jesus Christ
was peaceably established in France.
Sometimes I seek to restrain them. I show to them the atrocious edict which orders the
destruction of every house in which Divine service shall have been celebrated. I remind
them that in more than twenty towns the faithful have been massacred by the populace.[8] In those happy days— happy
although stakes were blazing—it seemed as if the ancient saying was reversed, and
that no longer were the laborers few. No wonder that Calvin for once breaks into
enthusiasm, and gives vent to his joy. But we do the Reformer only justice when we say
that he rejoiced not because he was leader, but because his soldiers were devoted. They
were men worthy of their captain.
The success of these Evangelists entailed new labors and responsibilities on the Reformer.
The Churches which they planted had to be organised. These new communities came to Geneva
for the principles of their constitution, and the model of their government. If Geneva
bore the likeness of Calvin, France now began to bear the likeness of Geneva. Thus the
cares of the Reformer were multiplied and his labors increased as he grew older, he lived
two lives in one. The life passed in communion with God, and in the study of His Word, in
his closet, fed and sustained that other life of intense and practical activity which he
led before the world. From the contemplation of the laws of the kingdom of Christ as laid
down in the Bible, he rose up to apply these, as he believed, in the arrangement of living
Churches, and in the scheme of policy which he enjoined on the now powerful Protestant
body of France.
His counsels on this head expressed a lofty wisdom, which was not appreciated at the time,
but the three centuries that have since elapsed have set their seal upon it. All his
authority and eloquence were put forth to make the Protestants eschew politics, shun the
battle-field, and continue to fight their great war with spiritual weapons only. The
Reformer foresaw for the Church of France a glorious future, if only she should persevere
in this path. He had no faith in blood shed in battle: no, not in victorious battle; but
he had unbounded faith in blood shed at the stake of martyrdom. Give him martyrs—not
men in arms—and France was won. Not one letter of Calvin is extant in which he
recommends a contrary course. His advice to the Protestants of France was to wait, to have
patience, to submit to wrong, to abstain from revenging themselves, and not to be sparing
of their blood, for every drop spilt would, he assured them, bring them nearer the goal
they wished to reach. Nor were these counsels given to a small and weak party, which by
resisting might bring destruction upon itself: they were addressed to a body now
approximating in numbers half the population of France. They were given to a body which
had in its ranks men of wealth, nobles, and even princes of the blood: a body that could
raise soldiers, lead armies, fight battles, and win victories. Well, but, says Calvin, the
victories of the battlefield are barren; those of the martyr are always fruitfnl. One of
the latter is worth a score of the former.
Two letters have been forged with intent to convict the Reformer of having prompted to the
violent courses which some fiery spirits among tha French Protestants were now beginning
to pursue. The pretended original manuscripts are in the archives of the family of
D'Alisac, but their spuriousness has been abundantly proved.[9] They are neither in the handwriting of Calvin nor in that of any
of his known secretaries; and they are, moreover, disfigured by gross literary errors, by
coarse and violent epithets, and by glaring anachronisms. "In the first, M. du Poet
is called general of the religion in Dauphine, and this letter is dated 1547, a period in
which the Reformed religion had in Dauphine neither a soldier nor an organised Church, and
in which M. du Poet was still a Romanist! In the second letter, dated 1561, the same
person is called Governor of Montelimart, and High Chamberlain of Navarre, dignities with
which he was not invested till long after the death of Calvin.[10]
Attempts have also been made to connect the Reformer with the raid of the notorious
Baron des Ardrets. This man signalised his short career as a Protestant by invading the
district of Lyons, slaughtering Romanists, sacking churches, making booty of the priestly
vestments and the sacred vessels, and appropriating some of the cathedrals for the
Protestant worship. Did Calvin account these acquisitions a gain to Protestantism? Better,
he said, worship in the open air, in dens of the earth, anywhere, than in edifices so
acquired. He wrote to Ardrets, sharply reproving him, and condemning the outrages by which
he had disgraced the holy cause, for the sake of which he professed to have wrought them.
A similar judgment did the Reformer pronounce on the conspiracy of Areboise, that
ill-omened commencement of political Protestantism in France. "Better," he said,
writing to the head of that conspiracy, La Renaudie, "Better we should all perish a
hundred times than be the cause of exposing the Gospel to such a disgrace."[11]
But day and night he was intent on marshalling the spiritual host, and leading it
to the combat. Evangelists, martyrs, Churches: these were the three arms—to use a
military phrase—with which he carried on the war.
Of the skill and pains which he devoted to the preparation of the latter weapon—the
organization of Churches—we give but one example. For forty years the evangelization
of France had been going on. There were now small congregations in several of its towns.
In May, 1559, eleven ministers assembled in Paris, and constituted themselves into a
National Synod. This affair will come before us more fully afterwards; we notice it here
as necessary to the complete view of the work of Calvin. His plastic hand it was that
communicated to the French Protestants that organization which we see assumed at first by
a mere handful of pastors, but which was found to be equally adapted to that mighty Church
of thousands of congregations which, ten years thereafter, was seen covering the soil of
France.
There was first the single congregation, or Church of the
locality, with its pastor and small staff of associated rulers. This was the foundation.
Over the Church of a locality were placed the Churches of the district. Each congregation
sent its pastor and an elder to form this court, which was termed the Colloquy. Over the
Colloquy were the Churches of the province, termed the Conference; and over the Conference
were the Churches of all France, or National Synod.
This constitution was essentially democratic. The whole body of the people—that is,
the members of the Church—were the primary depositaries of this power; but its
exercise was narrowed at each gradation upwards. It began with the local congregation,
which, through their pastor and elders, decided on all matters appertaining to themselves.
Thence it passed to the Colloquy, which adjudicated on general questions, and on cases of
appeal. It proceeded upwards through the Provincial Conference to the National Synod,
which was the most select body of all, being constituted of two pastors and two elders
from each province. The National Synod passed sentence in the last resort, and from its
decision there was of course no appeal.
If the basis of this government was broad, being composed of the whole body of the people,
it had for its apex the very elite of the clergy and laity. Liberty was secured, but so
too were order, vigor, and justice. For the decision of the most important questions it
reserved the highest talents and the maturest wisdom. It combined the advantages of a
democracy with those of a monarchy. Its foundations were as wide and popular as the
constitution of England, but counterpoised by the weight and influence of the National
Synod, even as the government of England is by the dignity and power of the Crown.
Calvin did not carry his narrowing process the length of a single overseer or bishop. Not
that he held it unlawful to place over the Church a chief pastor, or that he believed that
the Bible condemned the office of bishop in itself. He recommended an episcopate to the
Church of Poland:[12] he
allowed the office of bishop in the Church of England;[13] and he has so expressed himself in his Institutes, as to leave the
Church at liberty on this head. But he thought he could more clearly trace in the New
Testament such a distribution of power as that which he had now made, and, at all events,
this equality of office he deemed much safer at present for the Church of France, for
which he foresaw a long period of struggles and martyrdoms. He would not expose that
Church to seduction by opening to her ministers the path of official or personal
aggrandisement. The fewer the dignities and grandeurs with which they were encompassed,
the more easy would they find it to mount the scaffold; and it was martyrs, not mitred
chiefs, that were destined, he believed, to lead the Church to victory.
The organization of the Church of France brought with it a new era to Protestantism in
that kingdom. From this time forward its progress was amazingly rapid. Nobles and
burgesses, cities, and whole provinces pressed forward to join its ranks. Congregations
sprang up in hundreds, and adherents flocked to them in tens of thousands. The entire
nation bade fair soon to terminate its divisions and strifes in a common profession of the
Protestant faith. Such was the spectacle that cheered the last years of Calvin. What a
profound thankfulness—we do not say pride, for pride he banished as sinful in
connection with such a cause—must have filled the bosom of the Reformer, when he
reflected that not only was the little city of Geneva, which he had won for the Gospel in
order that through it he might win mightier realms, preserved from overthrow in the midst
of hostile powers, but that it had become the center of a spiritual empire whose limits
would far exceed, and whose duration would long out-last, the empire of Charles!
CHAPTER 27 Back to Top
THE ACADEMY OF GENEVA.
Foundation of the Academy—Subscriptions—Its Opening—Its Literary
Equipment—Its Subsequent Renown—Its Library—What it Suggests— Calvin's
Simplicity of Life—Sadoleto Visits him—The Cardinal's Surprise—Calvin's
Poverty—His Charity—He Declines the Aid of the Council.
IN the wake of the Gospel, learning and the arts, Calvin
held, should ever be found. Geneva had become, in the first place, a fountain of Divine
knowledge to the surrounding countries; he would make it, in the second place, a fountain
of science and civilization. In Italy, letters came first; but in England, in Bohemia, in
Germany, and now in Geneva, the Divine science opened the way, and letters and philosophy
followed. It was drawing towards the evening of his life, when Calvin laid the foundations
of the Academy of Geneva. Next to the Reformation, this school was the greatest boon that
he conferred on the republic which had only lately enrolled his name among its citizens.
It continued long after he was dead to send forth distinguished scholars, in every
department of science, and to shed a glory on the little State in which it was planted,[1] and where previous to the
Reformation scarcely one distinguished man was to be found.
The idea of such an institution had long been before the mind of Calvin, and he wished not
to die till he had realised it. Having communicated his design to the Council, it was
approved of by their Excellencies, and in 1552 a piece of ground was purchased on which to
erect the necessary buildings. But money was lacking. Geneva was then a State of but from
15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. Its burdens were numerous. It had to exercise hospitality to
from one to two thousand refugees. It had to endure the expenses of war in a time of
peace, owing to the continual rumors set on foot that the city was about to be assaulted.
After satisfying these indispensable demands, the citizens had not much money to spare.
For six years the ground on which the future college was to stand lay untouched; not a sod
was turned, not a stone was laid.
Impatient at this delay, and thinking that he had waited long enough on the Council,
Calvin now set on foot a public subscription, and soon he found himself in possession of
10,000 florins. This was little for the object, but much for the times. He immediately
laid the foundations of the edifice. He marked with joy the rising walls; tearing himself
from his studies, he would descend from the Rue des Chanoines to the scene of operations,
and though enfeebled by quartan-ague he might be seen dragging himself over the works,
speaking kindly words now and again to the workmen, and stimulating them by expressing his
satisfaction at their progress. Two edifices were rising at the same moment under the eye
of the Reformer. The organization of the French Protestant Church and the building of the
Academy went on together. On the 5th of June, 1559, just eleven days after the meeting of
the National Synod in Paris, the college was ready to receive both masters and pupils. The
inauguration was celebrated by a solemn service in St. Peter's, at which the senators, the
ministers, and the burgesses attended. After prayer by Calvin, and a Latin address by
Beza, the laws and statutes of the college, the confession to be subscribed by the
students, and the oath to be taken by the rector and masters were read aloud. Theodore
Beza was appointed rector; five masterships—Calvin had asked seven—one of
Hebrew, one of Greek, one of philosophy, and two of theology, were instituted. In 1565, a
year after the death of the Reformer, there was added a lectureship in law. With her
Academy—which, however, was but the top-stone of a subsidiary system of instruction
which was to prepare for the higher—Geneva was fitter than ever for the great
spiritual and moral sovereignty which Calvin intended that she should exercise in Europe.[2]
Bungener's description of this memorial is as touching as his reflections are just.
"After their venerable cathedral," says he, "no building is dearer to the
Genevese; if you go upstairs to the class-rooms, you are in the rooms of the
library—full of memorials yet more living and particular. There you will be shown the
books of Calvin's library, the mute witnesses of his vigils, his sufferings, and his
death; there you will turn over the leaves of his manuscripts, deciphering, not without
difficulty, a few lines of his feverish writing, rapid as his thoughts; and, if your
imagination will but lend itself to the breathing appeals of solitude and silence, there
he himself is; you will behold him gliding among those ancient walls, pale, but with a
sparkling eye—feeble and sickly, but strong in that inner energy, the source of which
was in his faith. There also will appear to you, around him, all those of whom he was to
be the father—divines, jurists, philosophers, scholars, statesmen, and men of war,
all filled with that mighty life which he was to bequeath to the Reformation, after having
received it from her. And if you ask the secret of his power, one of the stones of the
college will tell it you in a few Hebrew words, which the Reformer had engraved upon it.
Come into the court. Enter beneath that old portico which supports the great staircase,
and you will read—The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And it is neither
on the wall nor on one of the pillars that these words are engraved. Mark well: it is on
the key-stone. What an emblem! and what a lesson!"[3]
The position which Calvin now filled was one of greater influence than perhaps any
one man had exercised in the Church of Christ since the days of the apostles. He was the
counsellor of kings; he was the adviser of princes and statesmen; he corresponded with
warriors, scholars, and Reformers; he consoled martyrs, and organised Churches; his
admonitions were submitted to, and his letters treasured, as marks of no ordinary
distinction. All the while the man who wielded this unexampled influence, was in life and
manners in nowise different from an ordinary citizen of Geneva. He was as humbly lodged,
he was as simply clothed, and he was served by as few attendants as any burgess of them
all. He had been poor all his days, and he continued so to the end. One day a cardinal of
the Roman Church, Sadoleto, who happened to be passing through Geneva, would pay him the
honor of a visit. He was conducted to No. 122, Rue des Chanoines, and told to his surprise
that this was the house of the Reformer. A yet greater surprise awaited the cardinal, he
knocked for entrance: there was no porter at the gate; no servant in livery gave him
admission: it was Calvin himself that opened the door.
His enemies, more just to him then than they have been since, acknowledged and admired his
indifference to money. "That which made the strength of that heretic," said Plus
IV., when told of his death, "was that money was nothing to him." The Pontiff
was correct in his fact, but at fault in his philosophy. Calvin's strength was rooted in a
far higher principle, and his indifference to riches was but one of the fruits of that
principle; but how natural the reflection on the part of one who lived in a city where all
men were venal, and all things vendible!
The Reformer's wants were few. During the last seven years of his life he took only one
meal a day, sometimes one in the thirty-six hours.[4] His charities were great; the Protestant exiles were ever welcome
to his table; kings, sometimes, were borrowers from him, and his small stipend left him
often in pecuniary difficulties. But he never asked the Council for an increase of his
emoluments; nay, he positively refused such when offered.
"Satisfied with my humble condition," was the witness which he bore to himself,
in the place where he lived, and before the eyes of all, a little while before his death,
"I have ever delighted in a life of poverty, and am a burden to no one. I remain
contented with the office which the Lord has given me."[5] The Registers of the Council of Geneva bear to this day the proofs
of his disinterestedness and forgetfulness of self. In January, 1546, the Council is
informed of the sickness of M. Calvin, "who hath no resources." The Council
votes him ten crowns, but; M. Calvin sends them back. The councillors buy with the ten
crowns a cask of good wine, and convey it to Calvin's house. Not to give offense, the
Reformer accepts their Lordships' gift, but lays out ten crowns of his salary "for
the relief of the poorest ministers." In the winter of 1556 the Council sent him some
firewood. Calvin appeared with the price, but could not induce the Council to accept of
it.[6] The Registers of 1560 inform us
of another cask of wine sent to M. Calvin, "seeing that he has none good."[7] The Reformer this time accepts;
and yet, because he received these few presents in the course of a ministry of twenty-six
years, there have not been wanting men who accused him of coveting such gifts, and of
parading his ailments, of which indeed he seldom or never spoke, in order to evoke these
benefactions. "If there are any," said he, in his Preface to the Psalms,
"whom, in my lifetime, I cannot persuade that I am not rich and moneyed, my death
will show it at last." In his last illness he refused his quarter's salary, saying
that he had not earned it.[8] After
his death it was found that his whole possessions did not exceed in value 225 dollars,[9] and if his illness had been
prolonged, he would have had to sell his books, or receive the money of the republic. On
the 25th of April, about a month before his death, the Reformer made his will. Luther's
will was highly characteristic, Calvin's is not less so. It exhibits the methodical and
business habits that marked his whole life, mingled with the humble, holy hope that filled
his heart. Having disposed of the 225 crowns, and of some other small matters pertaining
to the world he was leaving, he thus breaks out:—
"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
offenses, for which I deserved to be cast from him and destroyed."
CHAPTER 28 Back to Top
THE SOCLAL AND FAMILY LIFE OF GENEVA.
The Daily Sermon—Its Attractiveness—Daily Life of the Citizen—His
Dress—His Table—Development of Wealth—The Refugees—The Benefits they
conferred on their Adopted Country—English Names on the Genevan Registers—The
Sabbath in Geneva.
NOW that Calvin has realised his program, let us look at the
social and family life of the Genevese. The "Christian Idea," as Gaberel calls
it, had created their State, and religion was the all-pervading and dominant element in
it. Calvin, the people, the State—all three were one, the fusion was complete, and
the policy of the Senate, and the action of the citizens, were but the results of that
great principle which had called into existence this marvellous community. The
"Sermon" held a first place among their institutions. Day by day it
reinvigorated that spirit which was the "breath" of Geneva. But, besides the
need the Genevans felt of the instructions and consolations of religion, there were other
influences that acted in drawing them to the temples. Preaching was then a novelty. Like
break of day in an Eastern clime, the Gospel, in mid-day effulgence, had all at once burst
on these men after the darkness of the Middle Ages. Scarce had the first faint silvery
streaks shown themselves, when lo! the full flood of the sun's light was poured upon them.
The same generation which had listened to the monks, had now the privilege of listening to
the Reformers. From tales, legends, and miracles, which were associated in their minds
with the yoke of foreign masters, they passed to the pure and elevating doctrines of the
Word of God, which, apart from their own beauty and majesty, were, they knew, the source
whence had come their political and civil independence. We at this day can but faintly
realize the charm that must then have hung round the pulpit, and which assembled, day
after day, the Genevese in crowds, to the preaching of the Gospel.
At Geneva, the magistrate as well as the artisan invariably began the day with an act of
worship. At six in the morning the churches were opened, and crowds might be seen in every
quarter of the city on their way to spend an hour in listening to the
"Exposition." After this the youth assembled in school or college, and the
father and the elder sons repaired to the workshops. The mid-day repast, which was taken
in common with the domestics, again re-united the family. After dinner the head of the
household paid a short visit to his club [1] to hear the news. And what were the events on which the Genevan
kept his eyes intently fixed, and for which he waited from day to day with no ordinary
anxiety to receive tidings? The great drama in progress around him completely occupied his
thoughts. How goes the battle, he would ask, between Protestantism and Rome in France, in
Italy, in Spain? Has any fresh edict of persecution issued these days past from the
Vatican? Has any one been called to yield up his life on the scaffold, and what were his
last words? What number of refugees have arrived in our city since yesterday, and through
what perils and sufferings have they managed to reach our gates? Such were the topics that
furnished matter of daily talk to the Genevese. The narrow limits of their little State
were far from forming their horizon. Their thoughts and sympathies were as extensive as
Christendom. There was not a prisoner, not a martyr for the Gospel in any of its countries
for whom they did not feel and pray; he was their brother. Not a reverse befell the cause
of the Reform in any part of the field which they did not mourn, nor a success in which
they did not rejoice. They were watching a battle which would bring triumph or overthrow,
not to Geneva only, but to the Gospel; hence the gravity and greatness of their
characters. "The Genevan of that day," says Gaberel, "took the same
interest in the news of the kingdom of God, which he takes today in the discussion of
material affairs."[2]
The family life of the Genevans at that period was characterised by severe
simplicity. Their dress was wholly without ornament. The magistrates wore cloth; the
ordinary burgess contented himself with serge. This difference in their attire was not
held as marking any distinction of class among the citizens, for the members of the
Councils were chosen entirely with reference to their merit, and in nowise from any
consideration of birth or wealth. Nor did this avoidance of superfluities lead to any
falling off in the industrial activity or the inventive skill of the citizens. On the
contrary, the arts and industries flourished, and both the citizens of Geneva, and the
refugees who found asylum within it, became famous for their manufacture of objects of
utility and luxury, which they exported to other countries.
If their dress was marked by plainness, not less were their tables by frugality. The rich
and poor alike were obliged to obey the sumptuary laws. "The heads of
fanlilies," says Gaberel, "seeing the ease, the health, the good order, the
morality that now reigned in their dwellings, blessed those rigorous laws, which only
gourmands found tyrannical, who remembered with regret the full tables of other
days."[3] We
dare say some of these men would have wished rather that their dinners had been ampler,
though their liberty had been less. They are not the first who have thought the blessing
of freedom too dearly purchased if bought with the sacrifice of dainties.
When periods of distress came round, occasioned by war or famine, the citizens were
especially sensible of the benefit of this simple and frugal manner of life. They felt
less the privations they had then to bear, and were able to support with dignity the
misfortunes of the State. Moreover, as the result of this economy, the wealth of the
citizens was rapidly developed, and the State reached a prosperity it had never known in
former days. Each citizen laid by religiously a certain portion of his earnings, and the
years of greatest calamity were precisely those that were signalized by the greatest
beneficence. Instead of receiving support from other States, Geneva sent its charities to
the countries around, becoming a storehouse of earthly as of heavenly bread to the
nations. These citizens, who wore plain blouses, and sat down to a meal correspondingly
plain, entertained during many years, with liberal Christian hospitality, the refugees of
religion—nobles, scholars, statesmen, and men of birth. The Genevan citizen,
independent in means, and adding thereto that mental independence which the Gospel gives,
could not but be a being of conscious dignity, and of character inherently grand, whom no
call of devotion or heroism would find unprepared.
Geneva profited immensely in another way by the movement, of which it had become the
headquarters. The men who crowded to it, and to whom it so hospitably opened its gates,
conferred on it greater advantages than any they received from it. They were of every
rank, profession, and trade, and they brought to the city of their adoption, not
refinement of birth and elegance of letters only, but also new arts and improved
industries. There immediately ensued a great quickening of the energies of labor and skill
in Geneva, and these brought in their turn that wealth and conscious dignity which labor
and skill never fail to impart. It is a new nation that we behold forming on the soil of
the republic, with germs and elements in its bosom, higher and more various than infant
State had ever before enjoyed. The fathers of the great Roman people were but a band of
outlaws and adventurers! How different the men we now see assembling on the shores of the
Leman to lay the foundations of the Rome of Protestantism, from those who had gathered at
the foot of the Capitoline to lay the first stone in the Eternal City! From the strand of
Naples to the distant shores of Scotland, we behold Protestantism weeding out of the
surrounding countries, and assembling at this great focus, all who were skilful in art, as
well as illustrious in virtue, and they communicated to Geneva a refinement of manners and
an artistic skill which it continues to retain after the lapse of three centuries.
The most important question raised by the arrival of these exiles was not, Where shall
bread be found for them? The hospitality of the Genevese solved this difficulty, for
scarce was there citizen who had not one or more of these strangers living under his roof,
and sitting at his table. The question which the Genevese had most at heart was, how shall
we utilize this great access of intellectual, moral, and industrial power? How shall we
draw forth the varied capabilities of these men in the way of strengthening, enriching,
and glorifying the State? Let us begin, said they, by enrolling them as citizens.
"But," said the Libertines, when the proposal was first mooted, "is it fair
that newcomers should lay down the law to the children of the land? These men were not
born on the soil of the republic."
True, it was answered, but then the republic is not an affair of acres, it is an affair of
faith. The true Geneva is Protestantism, and these men were born into the State in the
same hour in which they became Protestants. This broad view of the question prevailed.
Nevertheless, the honor was sparingly distributed. Up till 1555, only eighty had received
the freedom of the city; in the early part of that year, other sixty were added [4] —a small number truly when
we think how numerous the Protestant exiles were. The greatest of all the sons of Geneva,
he who was more than a citizen, who was the founder of the State, was not legally enrolled
till five years before his death. The name of John Knox was earlier inscribed on the
Registers than that of John Calvin. Hardly was there a country in Europe which did not
help to swell this truly catholic roll. The list contributed by Italy alone was a long and
brilliant one. Lucca sent, among other distinguished names, the Calendrini, the
Burlamachi, the Turretini, and the Micheli.[5] Of these families many took root in Geneva, and by the services
which they rendered the State, and the splendor their genius shed upon it in after-days,
they repaid a hundred-fold as citizens the welcome they had received as refugees. Others
returned to their native land when persecution had abated. "When the English
returned," says Misson, "they left in the Register, which is still preserved, a
list of their names and qualities— Stanley, Spencer, Musgrave, Pelham, are among the
first in it, as they ought to be. The title of citizen, which several had obtained, was
continued to them by an order and compliment of the Seigniory, so that several earls and
peers of England may as well boast of being citizens of Geneva as Paul did of being a
citizen of Rome."
One of the most striking characteristics of the Geneva of that day, and for a century
after, especially to one coming from a Popish country, was its Sabbath. The day brought a
complete cessation of labor to all classes: the field was unwatered by the sweat of the
husbandman, the air was unvexed by the hammer of the artisan, and the lake was unploughed
by the keel of the fisherman. The great bell of St. Peter's has sounded out its summons,
the citizens have assembled in the churches, the city gates have been closed, and no one
is allowed to enter or depart while the citizens are occupied in offering their worship.
Everywhere the stillness of the sacred day is sublime, but here that sublimity was
enhanced by the grandeur of the region. The Sabbath seemed to shed its own pure and
peaceful splendor upon the sublimities of nature, and these sublimities, in their turn,
seemed to impart an additional sanctity and majesty to the Sabbath. There was peace on the
blue waveless Leman; there was peace on those plains that enclosed it in their vast sweep,
and on whose bosom the chalet lay hid amid festooned vines and tall pine-trees. There was
peace on the green rampart of the Jura, and peace on the distant Alps, which in the
opposite quarter of the horizon lift their snowy piles into the sky, and stand silent and
solemn as worshippers. A superb temple, indeed, seems the region, walled in by natural
grandeurs, and pervaded throughout with a Sabbatic peace. In the midst of it is the little
city of Geneva. No stirs or tumults are heard within it; its bells and its psalms only
salute the ear. Beaming faces, the sign of happy hearts, tell what a clay of gladness it
is—the most gladsome of all the seven. In every dwelling is heard "the melody of
health." But we must go to St. Peter's, would we see in its highest manifestation the
power of the Sabbath to raise the souls and mould the characters of a people. A crowd of
magnanimous, earnest, intelligent faces look up around the pulpit. There are gathered the
finest intellects and holiest spirits of all Christendom, for whatever was noble and pure
in other countries had been chased thither. The worship of men like these could be no
common affair, no mere show or pantomime, like that performed in bespangled vestments amid
lighted tapers. The worshippers in St. Peter's were men whose souls had been attempered in
the fire, and who, having forsaken all worldly goods for the sake of the Gospel, stood
prepared every hour to sacrifice life itself. Their worship was the worship of the heart,
and their prayer the prayer of faith that pierces the heavens.
And as the devotion of the hearers was entire, so the instructions of the pulpit were
lofty. The preacher might not be always eloquent, but he was never tame. He forgot himself
and remembered only his great theme. Did he discourse on some point of doctrine, his
exposition was clear, his words weighty; did he plead the cause of the confessors of other
lands, "led as sheep to the slaughter," it was with a truthfulness and pathos
that made his hearers mingle their tears with his, and prepared them to open their doors
to such of the persecuted as might escape the prisons and stakes which their enemies had
prepared for them. Such were the scenes that might be witnessed every Sabbath in those
days within the walls of St. Peter's, Geneva. If Geneva was the "inner Bureau"
of the European Reformation, as Gaberel says, the pulpit was the inner spring of power in
that "Bureau." While the pulpit of Geneva stood, Geneva would stand; if the
pulpit should fall, Geneva too would fall. It was the buhvark of its liberties, the
"horses and chariots" that guarded the independence of the State. It was at the
fire, which burned continually on this altar, that the men of Geneva kindled the torch of
liberty, and their love of liberty daily recruited that indomitable firmness which so
perplexed and mortified Philip II. in the Escurial, and the Pope in the Vatican, and many
others besides, who never warred against the little State save to be broken upon it.
CHAPTER 29 Back to Top
CALVIN'S LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH
Calvin's Painful Maladies—Redoubles his Labors—Last Appearance in the
Pulpit—Europe Watches his Death-bed—The Plague breaks out—Its Frightful
Ravages—Calvin's Last Participation in the Lord's Supper— Goes for the Last Time
to the Senate—He Receives the Senators— Receives the Pastors—Farel Visits
him—Sits down at Table for the Last Time with his Brethren—His Last
Week—One continued Prayer—His Death—His Burial—His Grave.
TO the Reformer the close was now near. His body, never
robust, had become latterly the seat of numerous maladies, that made life a prolonged
torture. The quartan-ague of 1559 he had never recovered from. He was afflicted with pains
in his head, and pains in his limbs. Food was often nauseous to him. He suffered front
asthma, and spitting of blood. He had to sustain the attacks of the gout, and the yet more
excruciating agony of the stone. Amid the ruins of his body, his spirit was fresh, and
clear, and vigorous as ever; but as the traveler quickens his steps when the evening
begins to fall, and the shadows to lengthen, Calvin redoubled his efforts, if so, before
breathing his last, he might make that legacy of wisdom and truth he was to leave to the
Church still more complete and perfect. His friends in many lands wrote imploring him to
take a little rest. Calvin saw rest—ever-lasting rest coming with the deepening
shadows, and continued to work on. Beza tells us that during his last malady he translated
from Latin into French his Harmony on Moses, revised the translation of Genesis, wrote
upon the Book of Joshua, and finally revised and corrected the greater part of his
annotations on the New Testament. He was all the while receiving and answering letters
from the Churches. He had but a little before given the last touches to his immortal work,
the Institutes. The last time he appeared in the pulpit was on the 6th of February, 1564.[1]
On that occasion he was seized with so violent a fit of coughing that it brought
the blood into his mouth, and stopped his utterance. As he descended the stairs, amid the
breathless stillness of his flock, all understood but too well that his last words in the
pulpit of St. Peter's had been spoken. There followed weeks of intense suffering. To the
martyr when mounting the scaffold the Reformer had said, "Be strong, and play the
man:" during four months of suffering, not less severe than that of the scaffold, was
Calvin to display the heroism which he had preached to others. The more violent attacks of
his malady were indicated only by the greater pallor of his face, the quivering of his
lips, the tremulous motion of his clasped hands, and the half-suppressed ejaculation,
"O Lord! how long?" It was during these months of suffering that he prosecuted
the labors of which Beza, who was daily by his bedside, tells us in the passage referred
to above. A little cold water was often his only nourishment for days, and having
refreshed himself therewith, he would again resume work.
On this death-bed were riveted the eyes of all Christendom. Rome waited the issue of his
sickness with intense excitement, in the hope that it would rid her of her great foe. The
Churches of the Reformation asked with sorrowful and most affectionate anxiety if their
father was to be taken from their head. Meanwhile, as though to impress the minds of men,
and make a great mourning around this mighty bier, the plague broke in, and inflicted
unprecedented ravages on almost all the countries of Europe. It traversed Germany, France,
and Switzerland, "and men fell before it," says Ruchat, "as fall the leaves
in autumn when the tempest sweeps through the forest." This pestilence was equally
fatal on the mountain-top and in the low valley. In the Tockenburg and other parts of
Switzerland it entered hamlets and villages, where it left behind it not one living man.
In Basle it struck down seven thousand persons, among whom were thirteen councillors,
eight ministers, and five professors; among the latter was the learned Cellarius. At Bern,
from one to two thousand died. It visited Zurich, and numbered among its victhns Theodore
Bibliander, the successor of Zwingli. Bullinger was attacked, but recovered, though he had
to mourn the loss of his wife and two daughters. At Herisau, in the canton of Appenzell,
there were upwards of three thousand deaths. The Protestant congregations, in some cases,
assembled in the open air, and when they celebrated the Lord's Supper, the communicants in
order to avoid infection, brought each his own cup, and made use of it at the tablc. It
was in the midst of the universal gloom created by these terrible events that men waited
from day to day for tidings from the sick-bed at Geneva.
Calvin longed to appear yet once again in that church where he had so often preached the
Gospel. "On the 2nd of April," says Beza, "it being Easter-day, he was
carried to church in a chair. He remained during the whole sermon, and received the
Sacrament from my hand. He even joined, though with a trembling voice, the congregation in
the last hymn, 'Lord, let thy servant depart in peace.'" He was carried out, Beza
adds, his face lighted up with a Christian joy.
Six days before (27th March) he had caused himself to be borne to the door of the
Council-chamber. Ascending the stairs, supported by two attendants, he entered the hall,
and proposed to the Senate a new rector for the school; then, taking off his skullcap, he
thanked their Excelleneies for the kindness which he had experienced at their hands,
especially the friendship they had shown him during his last illness: "For I
feel," he said, "that this is the last time that I shall stand here." The
tones of that voice, now scarcely audible, must have recalled, to those who listened to it
for the last time, the many occasions on which it had been lifted up in this same place,
sometimes to approve, sometimes to condemn, but always to attest that he who spoke was the
fearless champion of what he believed to be truth, and the unbending and incorruptible
patriot. His adieu moved the Council to tears.[2]
A month after, he sent another message to the Council, intimating his desire to
meet its members yet once more before he shouhd die. Having regard to his great weakness,
the Council resolved to visit him at his own house. Accordingly, on the 30th April, the
twenty-five Lords of Geneva, in all the pomp of a public ceremony, proceeded to his humble
dwelling in the Rue des Chanoines. Raising himself on his bed, he exhorted them, amongst
other things, to maintain ever inviolate the independence of a city which God had destined
to high ends. But he reminded them that it was the Gospel which alone made Geneva worth
preserving, and that therefore it behooved them to guard its purity if they would preserve
for their city the protection of a stronger arm than their own. Commending them and Geneva
to God, and begging them one and all, says Beza, to pardon his his faults, he held out his
hand to them, which they grasped for the last time, and retired as from the death-bed of a
father.[3]
On the morrow he received the pastors. Most affectionate and touching was his address. He
exhorted them to diligence in their office as preachers, to show fidelity to the flock, to
cultivate affection for one another, and, above all, maintain the Reformation and
discipline which he had established in the Church. He reminded them of the conflict he had
had to wage in this matter, and the afflictions that had befallen him, and how at length
God had been pleased to crown his labors with success. His many maladies and sicknesses,
he said, had at times made him morose and hard to please, and even irascible. For these
failings he asked pardon, first of God, and then of his brethren; and,
"finally," Beza adds, "he gave his hand to each, one after the other, which
was with such anguish and bitterness of heart in every one, that I cannot even recall it
to mind without extreme sadness."
The Council he had bidden farewell, his brethren he had bidden farewell, but there was one
friend, the oldest of all save Cordier, who had not yet stood at his death-bed and
received his last adieus. On the 2nd May, Calvin received a letter from Farel, in which
the writer intimated that he was just setting out to visit hint. Farel was now nearly
eighty. Could he not wait the little while till he had put off "this
tabernacle," and then, with less difficulty to either, the two friends would meet? So
it would seem did Calvin think, and hence the letter he immediately
dictated:—"Farewell, my best and most faithful brother, since it is God's will
that you should survive me; live in the constant recollection of our union, which, in so
far as it was useful to the Church of God, will still bear for us abiding fruit in heaven.
I wish you not to fatigue yourself on my account. My breath is weak, and I continually
expect it to leave me. It is enough for me that I live and die in Christ, who is gain to
his people both in life and death. Once more farewell to thee, and to all the brethren thy
colleagues."
A few days afterwards the Reformer saw the old man, covered all over with dust, having
walked from Neuchatel on foot, enter his sick-chamber.[4] History has not recorded the words that passed between the two.
"He had a long interview with him," says Ruchat, "and on the morrow took
his departure for Neuchatel." It was a long way for one of eighty years, and yet
surely it was meet that the man who had met Calvin at the gate of Geneva, when he first
entered it nearly thirty years before, should stand beside him when about to depart. This
time Farel may not stop him.[5]
Yet a few days more was the Reformer to pass on earth. The 19th of May, or the Friday
before Whit-Sunday, brought round the Censures, as they were called. The pastors, on that
day, met, and admonished each other fraternally, and afterwards partook together of a
modest meal. Calvin requested that the dinner should be prepared at his house; and when
the hour came he had himself carried into the room where the repast was to be eaten.
Seated amongst his colleagues, he said, "'I am come to see you, my brethren, for the
last time; for, save this once, I shall never sit again at table.' Then he offered prayer,
but not without difficulty, and ate a little, "endeavoring," says Beza. "to
enliven us." "But," he continues, "before the end of the meal, he
requested to be carried back to his chamber, which was close by, saying these words with
as cheerful a face as he could—"A partition between us will not prevent me,
though absent in body, being present with you in spirit.'" He had spoken truly. From
the bed to which he had been carried he was to rise no more.
There remained yet eight days to the Reformer on earth. These were almost one
uninterrupted prayer. The fervency of his supplications was indicated not so much by his
voice, now scarcely audible, as by his eye, which, says Beza, "retained its
brightness to the last," and testified to the faith and hope with which he was
animated. He had not yet left earth, and yet he had left it: for of earthly bread he ate
not; with men he had ceased to converse; he halted here, at the portal of the invisible
world, to calm, to elevate, and to strengthen his spirit, by converse with the Eternal,
before passing its awful but blessed threshold. It was now Saturday, the 27th of May. He
seemed to suffer less, and to speak with greater ease. But at eight o'clock of the evening
the sure signs of death became apparent. As he was repeating the words of the apostle,
"the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to
be... —without being able to finish, he breathed his last.[6] Beza, who had been summoned to his bedside, was just in time to
see him expire. "And thus," says he, "on this day, with the setting sun,
the brightest light in the Church of God on earth was taken back to heaven." The
event was briefly chronicled in the Consistorial Register thus—"Went to God,
Saturday, the 27th."
Early on the day following, which was Sunday, the remains of the Reformer were wrapped in
a shroud and enclosed in a wooden coffin preparatory to interment. At two o'clock the
funeral took place. It differed in no respect from that of an ordinary citizen, save in
the much greater concourse of mourners. The body was followed to the grave in
Plain-palais—about 500 paces outside the city—by the members of the Senate, the
body of the clergy, the professors in the college, and by the citizens, and many
distinguished strangers; "not," says Beza, "without many tears." Over
the grave to which they had consigned so much—the Pastor, the Patriot, and the
Reformer—they raised no monument. Not a line did they write on marble or brass to
tell the ages to come who reposed in this grave, and what he had been to Christendom. They
arranged in reverent silence the dust above him, and departed. In this they but fulfilled
Calvin's own wishes. He had enjoined that he should be buried "after the customary
fashion;" "and that customary fashion," says Bungener, "which was
observed down almost to the present day, was that no monument should be raised upon any
grave, however illustrious the deceased might be."[7] "He was buried," says Ruchat, "with all simplicity,
in the common cemetery, as he himself had desired: so simply that no one at this day knows
where his grave is." "For more than two centuries," says Bungener,
"that grave has been dug over and over again, like the rest, by the sexton's spade;
and for less than twenty years a black stone has marked the spot where Calvin perhaps
reposed, for it is only a tradition.[8]
But it is well, perhaps, that neither tomb nor monument was raised to Calvin.
Forgetting his dust we stand face to face with the living, thinking, deathless spirit, and
rise to a truer and sublimer ideal of the man. Death has not caused Calvin to retire; he
is still with us: he speaks to us in his works, he lives in the Churches which he
organized, and he prosecutes from century to century his vast plans in the continued
progress of that moral and spiritual empire which his genius and faith founded, or, to
speak more truly, restored. While that empire lives, Calvin will live.
CHAPTER 30 Back to Top
CALVIN'S WORK.
Impression made by the News of Calvin's Death—Exultation of Rome— Despondency of
the Reformed—Both Mis-calculate—The Reformation is Calvin—Geneva grows
still Greater—Luther and Calvin Compared— The Two Reformations One—The
Culmination of the German Reformation, the Starting-point of the Genevan—Calvin's
Special Service to the Reformation—Theories of Church Government—Luther's
Views—Melancthon's—Brentius'—Lambert's—Zwingli's—Calvin Builds on
the Foundations of his Predecessors—The Key of his Position—The Two Lessons.
WHEN the tidings sped through Europe that Calvin was dead,
the two great parties into which Christendom was divided were very differently affected.
The one gave way to unbounded joy, the other was seized with nearly as unbounded sorrow.
Rome, hearing in the news the knell of Protestantism, confidently anticipated the
immediate return of the revolted countries to their obedience. "The man of
Geneva," as she termed the Reformer, was no more. The arm which had so often smitten
her legions, and chased them from the field in disastrous rout, would never again be
lifted up in battle; and she had nothing more to do, in order to restore her Church to its
former glory and dominion, than simply to go forth and summon the Reforming ranks, now
left without a leader, to surrender. The Pope went so far as to nominate seven
commissioners, who were to proceed to Geneva on this business.[1] This step was taken with the advice, amongst others, of Cardinal
Boromeo and the Bishop of Anneci, who seem to have persuaded the Pope that the Council and
citizens of Geneva only waited for some such embassage to abandon Protestantism, and bow
as penitents and suppliants at the footstool of the Papal throne. In truth they would have
done so during Calvin's life-time, they insinuated, but for the extraordinary influence
which that heretic exercised over them. The issue of this affair was very far from
answering the expectations of the Pope and his advisors.
If Rome thought, on the one hand, that the death of Calvin was her triumph, there were
Protestants, on the other, who viewed it as the almost certain overthrow of the
Reformation. There was just as little foundation for this conclusion as for the other. It
is principles, not men, that keep the world moving. The Reformer, in his short life of not
quite fifty-five years, had embodied all the principles of the movement in his writings;
he had enshrined them as in a living model in Geneva; through Geneva he had initiated the
great work of impressing them on Christendom. This, not the handful of dust in the
Plain-palais, was Calvin. The eye truly enlightened could see him still occupying his
chair at Geneva, and legislating and ruling Christendom from it as from a throne. While
the Reformation was there, Calvln was there; and if at Geneva, it was in France, and in
all Christendom. Both those who triumphed and those who trembled, thinking the last hour
was about to strike to Geneva and the Reformation, were alike mistaken. The city rose
higher than before, though the man who made it fantous was in his grave. The movement
spread wider than ever, and if the city was a center and impelling power to the movement,
the movement was a bulwark around the city. "The Genevese of the sixteenth
century," says an eloquent modern writer, "committed one of those deeds of
saintly daring which seem folly in the eyes of men, but which are in reality the safeguard
of nations heroic enough to attempt them. Geneva had been the representative of a great
right, liberty of conscience; she offered an asylum to all the martyrs of the faith; she
had put her hand to the work, and pursued her career without casting a look behind.
Politicians and calculators may, if they please, see a sort of madness in a republic,
without strength or riches, proclaiming religious and moral liberty in the face of Italy,
Spain, and France, united for the triumph of Romish despotism. But the God of the faithful
ones who hold fast the truth confounded human prevision, he surrounded our town with that
celestial protection, against which the plots and the rage of the mighty broke in vain.
Thus Geneva, without arms and without territory, accomplished her perilous mission; and
remaining faithful to the principle of her nationality, the city of Calvin saw herself the
object of the Divine favor, and enjoyed a prosperity, a respect, and an outward security
which the most powerful States in the world do not often obtain."[2]
Now that we have come to the close of Calvin's career, it is necessary that we
should pause, and ask wherein lay his distinctive characteristic as a Reformer, and what
was it that constituted the specific difference between his Reformation and that of
Luther. The answer to this inquiry will help us to understand the unity that belongs to
the great drama whose successive developments we are attempting to trace. The work of
Luther was needed to prepare for that of Calvin, and Calvin's was necessary to complete
and crown that of Luther. The parts which each acted were essential to constitute a whole.
Wittenberg and Geneva make between them one Reformation. This can be better seen in our
day than when Luther and Calvin were alive, and toiling each at his allotted part of the
great task.
Let us first sketch in outline the difference between these two men and their work, and
then return and explain it a little more in detail.
By the year 1535, the Reformation in Germany had culminated, and was beginning to decline.
The Augsburg Confession (1530) marked the era of greatest prosperity in German
Protestantism; the formation of the Schmalkahl League notified the moment of its incipient
decline.
That League, in itself, was quite defensible—nay, even dutiful, considering the power
of the princes, and the attempts the emperor was making to destroy the political system of
Germany. But it exercised, especially after the death of Luther, a depressing and
withering effect upon the spiritual energies of the Protestants, which did more to throw
back the movement than would any amount of violence that could have been inflicted upon
it. With Luther in his grave, with Melancthon and his compromises, with Landgrave Philip
and his soldiers, the Reformation in Germany had closed its period of well-doing. Another
center had to be found where the movement might have a fresh start. Geneva was selected.
There the Reformation was extricated from the political entanglements with which it had
become mixed up in Germany. It was rescued from the hands of political and military men:
it was withdrawn from reliance on armies, and committed to those who could further it only
with their prayers and their martyrdoms. True, its second cradle was placed on a spot
which, of all others, seemed open to attack on every side, and where it was not sure of a
day's life; yet around that spot were invisible ramparts; the poise constantly maintained
in the ambitions of its neighboring sovereigns— Charles, Francis, and the
Pope—was to it for walls.
As new foothold had to be found for the movement, so too had a new chief. And,
accordingly, before Luther had been laid in his tomb at Wittenberg, Calvin was fairly
installed at Geneva. He was prosecuting his work in quietness by the shores of the Leman,
while the princes of the Schmalkald League were fighting on the plains of Germany. Under
Calvin the Reformation entered upon a new and more spiritual dispensation. All the
incidents in Luther's life are sudden, startling, and dramatic: this form was given them
to draw attention and fix the minds of men. But the movement, once launched, needed this
array of outward drapery no longer. Under Calvin it appeals less to the senses and more to
the intellect: less to the imagination and more to the soul. The evolutions in Calvin's
career are quiet, gradual, without the stage effect, if we may be permitted the phrase,
which marked Luther's more notable appearances, but they are more truly sublime.
Henceforward the Reformation proceeds more silently, but with a deeper power, and a higher
moral glow.
The leading stages of Luther's history repeat themselves in that of Calvin, but after a
different fashion. In the career of each there is a marked point of commencement, and a
marked point of culmination. The nailing of the ninety-five Theses to the church door at
Wittenberg has its analogue, or corresponding act, in the publication of the Institutes at
Basle. The one manifesto struck and stirred Christendom even as did the other. Each
notified the entrance of its author upon a high career. They were two mighty voices
telling the world that great instructors had been sent to it, and bidding it hear them.
Again, the appearance of Luther before the Diet at Worms has its corresponding act in the
victory of Calvin over the Libertines of Geneva, when at the risk of life he barred their
way to the Communion-table. The first was the more dramatic, the second was the more
evangelically grand. Both were needed fully to define the office and place of the
Reformation. The first demonstrated the Gospel's power to withstand kings and armies, and
triumph over all the power of the sword: the second showed that its energy equally fitted
it to cope with Libertine mobs, and to resist their devastating theories. It would not lay
its freedom at the feet of the tyrant, and neither would it surrender its purity at the
call of the populace.
Im fact, we see only the one half of the work which Calvin accomplished, when we confine
our attention to the blow he dealt that great system which had so long kept the intellect
of the world in darkness and its conscience in bondage. The evil he prevented rising up
was as great as that he helped to pull down. It is altogether a mistake to suppose that if
the Reformation had not come, the Church of Rome would have continued to exercise the sway
she had wielded in the past. The hour of her supremacy had gone by. The scandals and
dogmas of the priesthood had destroyed belief: the speculations of the schoolmen had sown
the seeds of pantheism, and a great tempest lowered over Europe. Loosened from its old
foundations, an upheaval of society was inevitable. But for Protestantism, Servetus would
have been the Voltaire of the sixteenth century: the Libertine club, on the shores of the
Leman, would have anticipated the Encyclopaedists who at a later period flourished on the
banks of the Seine; Geneva would have filled the post which Paris did two centuries after,
by becoming the headquarters of revolutionary propagandism; and the year 1593 would have
been as fatal to the thrones and altars of the Papal world as was the year 1793.
Providence postponed the tempest through the agency of Calvin, who grappled with the young
giant of pantheistic revolution, and made Geneva the headquarters of a Protestant
propagandism, which by restoring knowledge and faith imparted a new life to the European
nations, and laid over again the foundations of a world that was dissolving and about to
vanish away. And not only was the storm deferred thereby, its violence was mitigated when
at last it came, and its devastations restricted to the one half of Europe. The Roman
Church may not see the debt it owes to Calvin; that, however, does not make it less the
fact that there is no man who ever lived, to whom its priests owe half what they owe to
him. The inviolability of person which they continued to enjoy for two centuries after his
day was due to the Reformer.
Such were the two men who figured so largely in the sixteenth century, and such is the
part accomplished by each in the one work assigned to them. But let us explain a little
more fully what we have now briefly stated. The special service that Calvin rendered to
Protestantism was to codify its laws, and organise its adherents so as to conserve their
morality and holiness—in other words, the Reformation itself. His first step in the
direction of this great end—in his view the standing or falling of
Protestantism—was to exclude the profane from the Communion-table. This power he
lodged in the Consistory, or body of pastors and elders. He would allow no other authority
on earth to exercise it: and in claiming this power—and we have seen at what risks he
exercised it—he separated between the Church and the world, and laid the first stone
in that system of polity which he afterwards elaborated, and which was ultimately extended
to the Protestant Churches of France, of Holland, of Scotland, and of yet remoter
countries.
In what he did in this matter, the Reformer of Geneva built upon the foundations of his
great predecessors. The more eminent of the Reformers who had been before him, had felt
the necessity of drawing a distinction between the Church and the world, and of excluding
the ungodly and vicious from the Sacraments, and so conserving the Church's purity; but
their theories of Church discipline were elementary and crude, and their practical
attempts were to a great extent failures. Still it is beyond doubt that these early and
immature experiments helped to eliminate the principles and shape the projects which
resulted at last in the establishment of the Genevan polity.
Luther saw, and often mournfully felt, that the Church needed a discipline, but he failed
to give it such. When Luther enunciated his idea of a Church as "a congregation of
saints, a spiritual assembly of souls in one faith,"[3] he laid the foundation of a fabric on which Calvin afterwards
placed the top-stone. But the German Reformer proceeded no farther on this fundamental
idea than to constitute an office of men to preach the Word and dispense the Sacraments.
Scattered through his writings are the germs of a more complete and efficient polity; he
could distinguish between the temporal and the spiritual jurisdiction,[4] but how to give these principles
effect in the gathering and organising of the Church he knew not. He sorrowfully
confesses, in his German Mass and Order of Divine Worship, his inability to furnish what
was so much needed—a working plan for the government of the Church. One main
obstruction in his path was the low state of practical religion among the mass of the
German people. "I have not the people," said he, "whom it requires. For we
Germans are a wild, rude, riotous race, among whom it is not easy to set anything on foot
unless necessity compel."[5]
Melancthon enunciated his views on this head a little more clearly than Luther. He
declared his opinion "that a pastor ought not to excommunicate any man without the
concurrence of a body of judges, and the cooperation of some worthy members of the
Church."[6] So
also taught the four Saxon Reformers—Pomeranus, Jonas, Luther, and Melancthon. In a
joint epistle to the ministers of Nuremberg, in 1540, exhorting them to resume the
practice of excommunication, they annex the condition that, in this business, elders be
associated with the pastor.[7] These
projects embrace the elements of the Genevan polity. They fell to the ground, it is true,
about 1542, when the system under which the Churches of the Lutheran Communion still are,
was adopted—namely, a Consistory, chosen by, and responsible to, the civil powers;
but they exhibit a notable approximation on the part of the German Reformers to the plan
of ecclesiastical rule afterwards elaborated and set working by Calvin.
Next in order is the scheme of John Brentius. Brentius was the Reformer first of the free
imperial city of hall, in Swabia, and afterwards of the Duchy of Wurtemberg. He had the
merit of proposing to the Council of Hall, in 1526, a better working plan for the
regulation of the Church than either Luther's or Melancthon's, although still his plan was
defective. Founding on what, according to his view, was the order followed in the
Apostolic Church, he says: "The saints of the primitive Church thought it good to
observe the following order in conducting evangelical discipline:— Certain ancient,
honorable, and discreet men were elected from the assembly by the Christian people of each
locality, to whom charge was given to take the oversight of the congregation; and in
particular to admonish such as gave offense by unChristian 'unchristian' behavior, and to
inflict excommunication, if admonition proved unavailing. Of these chosen men the one who
was appointed to preach the Word, and who was authorised to convene the others for
business, was styled Bishop—that is, overseer or shepherd; the rest were styled, in
allusion to their age, Presbyters—that is, Councillors. The meeting of the Presbyters
and Bishop was designated a Synod—that is, an assembly." Such was the scheme of
Brentius; it is a well-defined and independent plan of Church rule, lodging the correction
of manners solely in the hands of the Church herself—that is, of her office-bearers.
Brentius appeared on the point of anticipating Calvin as regards his Church polity; and
yet he missed it. The existence of a Christian magistracy, in his view, modified the whole
question. A pagan magistrate could not be expected to correct Church scandals, and
therefore it behooved the primitive Church, unaided by the State, to administer her whole
discipline; but now, the magistrate being Christian he was fitted, according to Brentius,
to share with the Church the task of correcting and punishing evils; although still there
were vices and sins which the civil ruler could not or would not correct, and these the
Church herself must see to. Thus he inextricably mixed up the Church's discipline with the
State's authority, and he added to the confusion by giving to the magistrate the
nomination of the lay-assessors who were to take part with the pastor in the exercise of
discipline.
Another scheme claims a moment's attention from us. It is that of Francis Lambert, ex-monk
of Avignon, and Philip, Landgrave of Hesse. It was laid before the Committee of Hornburg
in the same year (1526) that saw the scheme of John Brentius submitted to the Council of
Hall. It is the most advanced of all. It lodged the administration of discipline
immediately and directly in the members of the Church. First of all, so far as human
judgment could effect it, a Church of saints only was to be constituted; these were to
convene from time to time, "for the public punishment and exclusion of scandalous
persons... for passing judgment on the doctrine of their pastor, for electing and, in case
of need, deposing bishops and deacons (i.e., ministers and helpers) and guardians of the
poor, and for whatsoever other functions pertain to the congregation; for these reasons,
we ordain that in every parish, after God's Word shall have been preached for a season,
there shall take place a convention of the faithful, wherein all males, who favor the
cause of Christ and are reputed saints, shall come together to decide, along with the
bishop, on all Church affairs, according to the Word of God. The bishop or minister may by
no means excommunicate or absolve by himself, but only in conjunction with the
congregation."[8]
This is not so much the Presbyterian as the Congregational polity. It is, in fact, a
scheme that blends the two, for it was made to approximate the first, by the institution
of provincial Synods, consisting of the pastors and a deputy from every congregation. It
is remarkable, when its age and place are considered. A draft of it was sent to Luther for
his approval. He advised that for the present the project should not be attempted, but
that every effort be made to fill the pulpits and schools with efficient men. Thereafter
the plan might be introduced piece-meal, and if it met with general approval might become
law; "for to draw a fine plan and to reduce it to practice are two very different
things. Men are not constituted as those people imagine who sit at home and sketch fine
plans of how things are to go." This constitution was hardly set a-working when it
was abandoned. The Church of Hesse, surrounded on all sides by laxer schemes of polity, in
a year or two forsook that of Lambert, and adopted that under which Luther had placed the
Churches of Saxony.
The plan of Zwingli was intermediate between that of Luther and that of Calvin. The
Reformer of Zurich framed a code of laws and ordinances covering the entire field of
social life, and committed their administration to a series of judges or courts, supreme
over which was the State.
Marriage, the Sunday, and the Sacrament were the three centers of his moral scheme, the
three points on which his ecclesiastical code hinged. With Luther, he regarded the power
of discipline as vested in the whole body of the faithful; and the provisions he made for
the exercise of that power were, first, the Kirk-session, or Still-stand, so called for
this reason, that at the close of public worship the members remained in church,
still-standing, with the pastor, and in that attitude made their communications to the
minister, and to one another, and reproved those cited before them for discipline. [9] Secondly, the half-yearly Synod,
which chiefly occupied itself with the doctrines and morals of the clergy; and thirdly,
the Board of Moral Control, to which was added, when the discipline of the Church
extended, the magistrates of the district. Excommunication—that is, exclusion from
the membership of the Church, with all implied in that sentence in Switzerland—was
often pronounced by the Still-stand as a temporary measure; but as a final measure it
could be pronounced only by the Council. The supreme ecclesiastical authority was thus in
the hands of the State, but it was handed over to it by Zwingli on the express condition
that the magistrates were Christian men, and were to take the Word of God as their sole
directory in all their proceedings.[10] The zeal and promptitude with which the Council of Zurich aided
Zwingli in his reforming measures, was not without its influence in molding his scheme of
polity, and indeed the Swiss magistrates of those days were amongst the more enlightened
and pious of the population. But seeing Constitutions are permanent while men change, in
order to be wisely framed they ought to be based, not on exceptional cases, but on great
and general laws.
Next to the doctrine of the Church, there is nothing that appertains more to her
well-being than her discipline. Without this, her life would ebb away, and she would fall
back into the world from which she had come out; whereas, with a suitable organization,
not only would her life be preserved, but her vigor and efficiency would be increased
tenfold. We have therefore sought to trace the successive stages of the growth of the
polity of the Protestant Churches. We see the Church's government, like her doctrine,
gradually developing and taking shape. The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers we
find lying at the foundation of all these schemes. On this idea Luther constitutes the
office of preacher of the Word. He feels that this is not enough, but does not see how, in
the then immature state of the Church, more can be done. Brentius joined lay-assessors
with the pastor, who were to exclude the unworthy from the privileges of the Church; but
the better half of this power he gave to the magistrate, who might in the end—this
was of course the questionable part of the scheme—usurp the whole of it. Francis
Lambert went to the other extreme. He made all the members of the Church judges—a
plan that will work with difficulty in any age, and which certainly was unsuited to the
age that saw its birth. The polity constructed by Zwingli was more elaborate, and did much
to nourish morality and piety in Switzerland, but its framer seriously endangered it when
he surrendered to the magistrate the power, in the last resort, of excluding from the
Church and her ordinances.
Calvin, doubtless, had studied all these attempts, and profited by them. There is no
reason to think that he reached this scheme of Church polity at a bound; it was rather a
reproduction of earlier schemes, avoiding, as far as he could, the rock on which his
predecessors had split. His genius detected the one thing which he thought essential in
Church discipline; and less concerned about other matters, he tenaciously grasped this,
the power namely of admitting to or excluding from the privileges of the Church. It was
his strong opinion that he who had this power had the guardianship of the Church's purity,
and the control of her govermnent, and that this right must be exercised by the Church
herself—that is, by her chosen representatives—to the exclusion of all other
authority and power. No one, he considered, can share with the Church, and no one dare
interfere with her in the exercise of this right. At great peril and suffering he
vindicated this right, against both the Council of Geneva and the Libertine democracy. In
this battle he stemmed the rising tide of infidel sentiment and immoral manners which
would have been more fatal to Reformation than the arms of the Empire, and he laid the
corner-stone of that spiritual dominion which Protestantism was to exercise over the
nations.
The Presbyterian of the present day will not admit that Calvin's scheme was faultless. The
Reformer's views touching the theocratic character of States prevented him doing full
justice to his own idea of the individuality of the Church, and forbade his placing his
ecclesiastical polity alongside the State's government, as an independent and distinct
autonomy. In the administration of practical discipline at Geneva the Council was greater
than the Consistory. But the essential principle, as Calvin deemed it— namely, the
sole power to admit or exclude, which was in his mind the key of the position—he
combated for, and vindicated with all the force of his mighty intellect. And when he came
to apply his theory of Church power to the French Churches, the completeness and
consistency of his ideas on ecclesiastical polity were better seen. In France the
government was hostile, and there, even if Calvin had wished, he could not have effected
the complication that existed at Geneva. But all the more was the fitness of his scheme
demonstrated. It gave a perfect autonomy to the French Protestant Church, which enabled
her to maintain her place alongside the throne, and to survive a lengthened succession of
terrific tempests, which began from this time to assail her.
It is not difficult to see, now that we look back on the epoch, that God was then teaching
a great lesson to the world—that a scripturally constituted and scripturally governed
Church would, in days to come, be the only bulwark against the tremendous evils which were
beginning to assail Christendom from opposite sides. This lesson, we must repeat, was
taught twice over, first in the case of Luther, and secondly in the case of Calvin.
In Luther we see the Reformation, undazzled by the blaze of worldly glory, and unterrified
by the threats of worldly power, maintaining its ground despite the insolence of
authority. In the case of Calvin, in the Cathedral of St. Peter's, we see the Reformation
standing before a licentious and furious infidel mob, who hate it not less than the
emperor does, and are just as eager to extinguish it in blood, and we behold that mob
recoiling abashed and awe-struck before its moral power. Happy had it been for Italy and
Spain had they laid to heart the first lesson! and happy had it been for France had she
pondered the second!
FOOTNOTES
VOLUME SECOND
BOOK FOURTEENTH
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 1
[1] De Bello Gallico, 1. 6.
[2] Spon, Hist. de Geneve, 3, p. 108.
[3] Ruchat, Hist. Reform. Suisse, tom. 1, p. 325; Lausanne, 1835.
[4] Bern MS., discovered by D'Aubigne in the Library at Bern — Hist. Reform. in Europe, vol. 1, p. 47.
[5] Advis et Devis de la Source de l'Idolatrie Papale, p. 34 — quoted by D'Aubigne, Hist. Ref. in Europe, vol 1, p. 160.
[6] Ibid., p. 80 — quoted by D'Aubigne, vol. 1, p. 161.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 2
[1] Bonivard, Chron., 2, 369 — apud D'Aubigne, 1, 257.
[2] D'Aubigne, bk. 1, chap. 20.
[3] M. Roset, Chron., 103. Ruchat, tom. 1, pp. 330, 331. Gallfie, Materiaux, etc., vol. 2, p. 303—apud D'Aubigne, vol. 1, p. 289.
[4] Ruchat, tom. 1, p. 331.
[5] D'Aubigne, vol. 1, p. 321.
[6] D'Aubigne, vol. 1, p. 331.
[7] D'Aubigne, vol. 1, pp. 338-340.
[8] Byron, Marino Faliero, act 2, scene 2.
[9] Bonivard, Chron., vol. 2, pp. 424-427. Galiffe, Hist. de Geneve, vol. 2, pp. 318-323. Journal de Balard, pp. 28-30 — quoted by D'Aubigne, vol. 1, p. 386.
[10] Registres du Conseil, December, 1525.
[11] Registres du Conseil, March 12, 1526. Journal de Balard, p. 54. Spon, Hist. de Geneve, 2. 392. Ruchat, 1. 331.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 3
[1] Ruchat, tom. 1, p. 353. Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renov., tom. 2, p. 322. (Ecolampadius to Farel, 27th December, 1526. Neuchatel MS. — quoted by D'Aubigne, vol. 4, p. 266; Edin., 1546.
[2] Ruchat, tom. 1, p. 353.
[3] Ibid., tom. 1, p. 356.
[4] J. J. Hottinger, 3. 364. D'Aubigne, vol. 4, p. 268.
[5] Ruchat, tom. 1, p. 356.
[6] Gerdesius, Hist. Reform., tom. 2, p. 322.
[7] We have already given a picture of the manners, lay and clerical, of Lausanne in the sixteenth century. See ante, vol. 1, bk. 8, ch. 3, p. 419.
[8] Ruchat, tom. 1, p. 357.
[9] Ibid., tom. 2, p. 175.
[10] Ibid., tom. 2, p. 178.
[11] Ruchat, tom. 2, pp. 176, 182.
[12] Ibid., tom. 2, p. 179.
[13] Farellus Molano. Neuchatel MS. — quoted by D'Aubigne, vol. 4, p. 323.
[14] Ruchat, tom. 2, p. 181.
[15] Choupard, MS. — quoted by D'Aubigne, vol. 4, p. 331.
[16] Ruchat, tom. 2, pp. 184, 185.
[17] Ibid., p. 185.
[18] Ruchat, tom. 2, pp. 276, 277.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 4
[1] Recess de MM. de Bern, MS. Choupard, MS. Chambrier, Hist. de Neuchatel. Governor's letter to Princess de Longueville — apud D'Aubigne. Ruchat, tom. 2, pp. 277-280.
[2] D'Aubigne, bk. 15, chap. 9.
[3] Memoire du Sire de Pierrefleur, p. 35. vol. 4, p. 258. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 23.
[4] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 27.
[5] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 28.
[6] Melch. Adam., Vit. Theol., p. 120. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 25. —German Switzerland differs from French Switzerland or the Swiss Romande, in that the former was evangelised almost entirely by native preachers, as Zwingle, (Ecolampadius, Hailer, etc. Viret was, we may say, the only native Reformer that arose in French Switzerland. It was mainly evangelised by men who had been born beyond its frontier.
[7] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 31-33.
[8] Memoire du Sire de Pierrefleur, p. 74. Choupard, MS. D'Aubigne, vol. 3, p. 291.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 5
[1] Memoire de M. de Bellegarde au sujet de l'audience qu'il a eu de S.M. Imperiale touchant les differends que S.A. avait avec ceux de Geneve. This MS. of about 25 pages was discovered by Dr. D'Aubigne in the archives at Turin. (See Hist. Reform. in Europe, bk. 5, chap. 6.)
[2] Spanheim, Geneva, Restituta, p. 43. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 175.
[3] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 5. Spon, Hist. de Geneve, tom. 1, p. 467. Choupard, MS. D'Aubigne, tom. 3, pp. 333. 334.
[4] Choupard, MS.
[5] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 177.
[6] La Saeur J. de Jussie, Le Lerain du Calvinisme, p. 46.
[7] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 177-180.
[8] Froment, Gestes de Geneve. pp. 5, 6. Choupard, MS. Spanheim, Geneva Restituta, p. 43.
[9] La Saeur J. de Jussie, Le Levain du Calvinisme, p. 48.
[10] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 179.
[11] Badollet MS. in Bern Library — Hist. Helv., quoted by D'Aubigne, vol 3, p. 375.
[12] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 180, 181,
[13] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, pp. 16-18.
[14] The prayer and the sermon that followed it have been recorded by Froment himself in his Gestes de Geneve. They are given by D'Aubigne in his History of the Reformation in Europe, bk. 5, ch. 12.
[15] Spanheim, Geneva Restituta, p. 52. Froment, Gestes de Geneve, pp. 43, 44. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 185.
[16] Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 186.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 6
[1] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 48. Spon, Hist. de Geneve, 1, p. 481.
[2] Hosea 6. 3.
[3] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 188. D'Aubigne, vol. 3,p. 432.
[4] D'Aubigne, vol. 3,p. 433.
[5] MS. Archives of Geneva: Letter from Bern, 20th March, 1533.
[6] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 51.
[7] Spanheim, Geneva Restituta—"solenni sacramento." Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 190.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ruchat, tom, 3, p. 191.
[10] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 193.
[11] Choupard, MS. D'Aubigne, vol. 3, p. 470.
[12] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, pp. 55-57. Roset, MS. Chron. Council Registers, 28th March, 1533. D'Aubigne, vol. 3, p. 472.
[13] Buchat, tom. 3, p. 194.
[14] La Scour J. de Jussie, Le Levain du Calvinisme, pp. 61, 62. D'Aubigne, vol. 3,p. 494,
[15] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 59. La Saeour J. de Jussie, Le Levain du Calvinisme, p. 63. Council Registers, 4th and 23rd May, 1533. D'Aubigne, vol. 3,pp. 500, 501.
[16] "Permettre a chacun de suivre les mouvements de sa conscience, en telle sorte que personne ne soit constraint." (Council. Registers, 27th May, 1533.)
[17] Roset, MS. Chronicles. Froment, Gestes de Geneve, pp. 62, 63. D'Aubigne, vol. 4, p. 248.
[18] D'Aubigne, vol. 4, p. 253.
[19] Gaberel. Lettres Patentes de l'Eveque. D'Aubigne, vol, 4, p. 255.
[20] Roset, MS. Chronicles, bk. 3, chap. 17.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 7
[1] Roset, Chron., bk. 3, chap. 21. Registres du Conseil, February 8th and 10th, 1534.
[2] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 82. Registres du ConseiI, March, 1534.
[3] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 325, 326.
[4] Ibid., tom. 3, p. 326.
[5] Ibid., tom. 3, p. 327.
[6] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 125. Roset, Chron., bk. 3, chap. 27. Registres du Conseil, July 31st, 1534, and January 25th, 1537. D'Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol. 4, pp. 400-402.
[7] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 337.
[8] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 343.
[9] Ibid., tom. 3, p. 354.
[10] Registres du Conseil, August 23rd, 1534.
[11] Misson in 1688 found Geneva still without suburbs. The four suburbs demolished were Rive, St. Victor, St. Leger, and Corraterie. (Misson, vol. 2, part 2, p. 410. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 379.)
[12] "Les Catholiques avaient une pleine liberte de pratiquer publiquement leurs ceremonies, et de faire generalement par toute la ville tous les autres exercices de leur re1igion." (Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 342.)
[13] Registres du Conseil, January 24th, 1534.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 8
[1] Ruchat, tom 3, p. 330. Gaberel, Hist. Eglise de Geneve, vol. I., p. 115.
[2] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 348.
[3] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 335.
[4] Ibid., tom. 3, pp. 336-337.
[5] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 352.
[6] Ibid., tom. 3, pp. 338, 339, 341,
[7] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 346, 347. Roset Chron., bk. 3, chap. 31. Gaberel, Hist. Eglise de Geneve, vol. 1, pp. 125-128; Geneve, 1853.
[8] Gaberel, vol. 1, p. 156,
[9] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 357, 358. Roset, Chron., 3. 35.
[10] Spenser, The Faerie Queene, bk. 1, cant. 4, st. 16.
[11] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 359, 360. Spanheim, p. 79. Roset, Chron., bk. 3, chap. 35. Gaberel, vol. 1, pp. 156-158.
[12] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 355, 356, Roset, Chron., 3, 35.
[13] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 375, 376. Roset, Chron., bk. 3, chap. 50. Spanheim, pp. 25, 26.
[14] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 375. — "Cervi veretrum, pro Antonii brachio repertum est. O sacrum non ridicuhm modo, sed detestabile et vere pudendum!" (Spanheim, pp. 24, 25.)
[15] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 378, 379. Gabere1, 1. 128-131.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 9
[1] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 378.
[2] Ibid., tom. 3, p. 378.
[3]. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 371. Gaberel, Hist. Eglise de Geneve, vol. 1, p. 161.
[4] Ruchat tom. 3, pp. 372, 373. 1081
[5] Ibid., tom. 3, p. 375.
[6] Ibid., tom. 3, pp. 375, 376.
[7] So ran the decree. Calvin had afterwards to complain of the misappropriation of these funds to private uses.
[8] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 381, 382, Roset, Hist. de Geneve, tom. 1, pp. 371, 372. Roset, Chron., bk. 3, chap. 37.
[9] Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 6.
[10] Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 7.
[11] Ibid., tom. 4, pp. 9-24.
[12] Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 15.
[13] Ruchat, tom. 4, pp. 24-33.
[14] MS. Chouet, p. 40. Roset, bk. 3, chap. 62. Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 108.
[15] MS. Chouet, p. 41. Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 109.
[16] Roset, bk. 3, chap. 68. MS. Chouet, p. 41. Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 110, 111.
[17] A summary of this Confession will be found in the following chapter.
[18] MS. Chouet, p. 41. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 111. A copy of this first Helvetic Confession from the original document, communicated to M. Ruchat by M. Jacob Bordier, Pastor of the Church of Geneva, and Librarian, is to be found in Ruchat's History, tom. 4, pp. 111-122.
[19] Ruchat, 3, 591, 592. Misson, Travel, 11, 417.
[20] "When in the year 1535 the tyranny of the Roman Antichrist had been overthrown and his superstitions abolished, the most holy religion of Christ in its purity, and the Church in its good order, were, by the singular mercy of God, here re-established. And at the same time its enemies having been beaten and put to flight, the city itself, not without the most manifest Divine interposition, was restored to its liberty. The Senate and People of Geneva decreed that this monument, in eternal memory of the event, should be prepared and set up in this place. By this they desire to testify their gratitude to God to all posterity." — Michael Roset says that a similar tablet was placed above the gate of the Corraterie; and the historical calendar, which is placed before the greater part of the old edition of the French Psalms, translated into verse by Marot and Beza, gives the date of the edict of the Reformation as the 27th of August, 1535.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 10
[1] Beza, Vita Calvini; Geneva, 1575.
[2] Ruchat, 4, 133.
[3] Beza, Vita Calvini.
[4] Beza, Vita Calvini.
[5] Praefatio ad PsaImos—Opp. Calvini.
[6] Ruchat, tom. 4, 133. Beza, Vita Calvini.
[7] Bungener, Calvin: his Life, his Labours, and his Writings, p. 102; Edin., 1863.
[8] Beza, Vita Calvini,
[9] Ruchat, tom. 4, pp. 111-122. Bungener, Calvin, pp. 104-108.
[10] The Council-General—that is, the People — elected the Council of Two hundred. In 1542 this was changed, and the election given to the Council of Twenty-five. Calvin saw the danger of the step, and conjured the magistrates to allow the Two Hundred to be named at all times by the Council-General. He foretold conflicts in the future, for the people would be sure some time or other to retake the power of which they had been deprived. "It was," says M. Gaberel, in his History of the Church of Geneva, "perhaps the only time in which Calvin was not listened to. If the election of Two Hundred had been left to the Council-General, the revolutions of the eighteenth century would never have caused blood to flow on the Genevese territory." (Tom. 1, p. 522.)
[11] Two Syndics, four members of the Council of Twenty-five, and six of the Council of Two Hundred. (Ruchat, Tom. 5, p. 158.)
[12] Guizot, Hist. France, vol. 3,pp. 236, 237; Lond., 1874.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 11
[1] Those who condemn Calvin for having forbidden dances, little dream of what sort these dances were. Ruchat, the historian of the Swiss Reformation (tom. 5, p. 244), tells us that there was in Lausanne a society of youths who at certain seasons "paraded the streets entirely naked, or in masques, representing the god Bacchus, dancing and singing lewd songs." Of a similar kind were the dances in Geneva. These laws, as we have seen in the previous chapter, were already enacted by the Council. Calvin found them in operation when he entered Geneva.
[2] Ruchat, tom.4, p. 110.
[3] Bungener, Calvin,. p. 110.
[4] Roset, MS. Chron.
[5] Ibid. Ruchat, tom. 5, p. 57.
[6] Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 57, 58.
[7] Beza, Vita Calvini.
[8] Beza, Vita Calvini.
[9] M. Roset, Chron. de Geneva, bk. 4, chap. 15.
[10] Bonnet, Lettres Francaises, tom. 2, p. 575.
[11] Roset, MS,. Chron, bk. 4, chap. 18. Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 65, 66
[12] Roset, MS. Chron. Beza Vita Calvini. Reqistrae, 23rd April, 1538.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 12
[1] Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 84-86.
[2] Morand was minister at Cully, on the shores of Lake Leman. Marcourt was minister at Neuchatel. Some have said that Marcourt was the writer of the famous Placards, which Florimond Raemond attributes to Farel. These violent manifestoes first thoroughly awoke that spirit of bloody persecution from which the Protestants suffered so long in France. It has never been certainly proved whose work they were, but they are more likely to have emanated from Marcourt than from Farel.
[3] Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 100,101.
[4] Ibid., tom. 5, pp. 123,124.
[5] Beza, Vita Calvini. Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 115,116. Bungener, pp. 136-145.
[6] Ad J. Sadoletum Responsio—Opp. Jo. Calvini, vol. 8, pp. 105-115; Amstel., 1667.
[7] Sleidan, Hist. Reform., bk. 12, p. 245.
[8] Sleidan, bk. 12, p. 247.
[9] Bungener, p. 152.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 13
[1] Sleidan, bk. 13, p. 268.
[2] Ibid., bk. 13. pp. 267, 268.
[3] Calvin's Letter to Farel, April, 1589 — Jules Bonnet, vol. 1, p. 114.
[4] Sleidan, bk. 13., p. 270. Ruchat, tom. 5, p. 151.
[5] Sleidan, bk. 13, p. 275.
[6] Sleidan, bk. xiii., pp. 276, 277.
[7] Letters of Calvin — Jules Bonnet, vol. i., p. 236.
[8] Letter to Farel, 11th May, 1541 — Jules Bonnet.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Letter to Farel, 11th May, 1541-Jules Bonnet.
[12] Sleidan, bk. xiv., pp. 278-282. Calvin, Letters, Nos. 63, 65, 67, 70. Paul Henry, Life and Times of Calvin, vol. i., pp. 230-237.
[13] M. Adamus, Vita Melancthonis, p. 340. Calvin, however, calls it apoplexy (Ep. 32). Eck died two years later, of a second attack of apoplexy. (Seckendorf, iii. parag. 112.)
[14] Sleidan, bk. xiv., p. 283.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 14
[1] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 96.
[2] The two foreign pastors, Marcourt and Morand, we find complaining to the Council in February, 1539, of the dissoluteness of Geneva, the masquerades, indecent songs, balls, dances, blasphemies, and of persons walking naked through the town to the sound of drums and fifes. (Ruchat, v. 112.)
[3] M. Roset, MS. Chron. Beza, Vita Calvini.
[4] Bungener, pp. 147, 148.
[5] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 155.
[6] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 152.
[7] Calvin to Farel, 27th October, 1540 — Jules Bonnet, No. 54.
[8] Beza, Vita Calvini. Ruchat, tom. v. p. 157. Letter to James Bernard, 1st March, 1541 — Jules Bonnet, No. 62.
[9] Had this been a biography, we should have dwelt at some length on Calvin's matrimonial negotiations; but in a history such details would press out graver matters. The Reformer devolved on his friends the task of providing a wife for him, They nominated and he exercised a veto. First a lady of noble birth and rich dower was found for him. He did not choose to mate with one above his own degree. He proposed that the lady should learn the French tongue; and, as Calvin had foreseen, she refused. Another lady was named, and Calvin had made advances, but, happily, he discovered in time sufficient reasons for not going farther. At last Bucer proposed one who had lately become a widow, Idelette de Bure, or Van Buren. She was a lady of deep piety, elevation of soul, and Christian courage, "a most choice woman," says Beza. These were the qualities that suited Calvin. The nuptials took place in the end of August, 1540. She was a girdle of strength to her husband. The reader cannot but remark the similarity of the names, Catherine de Bora and Idelette de Bure. They were noble women, but as the wives, the first of Luther and the second of Calvin, truth stand in a sort of twilight.
[10] "Pour la robe de Maistre Calvin." His salary was fixed at 500 Genevese florins, about £120 sterling of our day. He had besides twelve measures of corn, and two casks of wine. For a dwelling the mansion Freyneville was purchased at 260 crowns.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 15
[1] Paul Henry, Life and Times of Calvin, vol. i., p. 331. Sleidian, bk. xiv, pp. 284-286.
[2] Calvin to Farel; Geneva, 16th Sept., 1541 — Jules Bonnet, No. 76.
[3] Calvin: his Life, Labour., and Writings, bk. iii, chap. 1, p. 180.
[4] Gaberel, vol. i., pp. 255, 256.
[5] Ruchat, v., 158,159.
[6] Hist. de l'Eglize de Geneve; 1862.
[7] Gaberel, tom. i., pp. 269, 270.
[8] Calvin: his Life, Labours, and Writings, pp. 186, 187.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 16
[1] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 159.
[2] Bungener, p. 208.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 17
[1] Bungener, p. 207.
[2] Ibid., p. 209.
[3] Letter to Viret, July 11, 1547. Roset, Chronicle, 1546 (from MS. extracts by John McCrie, son of the biographer of Knox and Melville). Mr. John McCrie, a young man of the greatest promise, resided some time at Geneva, and made copious extracts from the Town Council Registers, and Roset's Chronicle, for the use of Dr. McCrie, his father, who then meditated writing the Life of Calvin. The Author was most obligingly favored with the use of these MS. extracts by his late valued friend, the younger McCrie.
[4] Ruchat, tom. v., pp. 318-320. Bungener, p. 210. Calvin to Viret, July 11, 1547.
[5] Roset, Chronicle (MS. extracts by John McCrie).
[6] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 317.
[7] Letter to Farel, No. 163 — Bonnet, vol. ii., p. 39.
[8] Letter to Viret, No. 211 — Bonnet, vol. ii., p. 135. This scene made so deep an impression on the mind of Calvin that he recalled it seventeen years afterwards, on his death-bed, in his farewell to the ministers of Geneva.
[9] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 327. Bungener, p. 215.
[10] Roset, Chronicle (MS. of John McCrie).
[11] Bezat Calv. Vita, an. 1548. Roset (MS. of John McCrie).
[12] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 380.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 18
[1] Sleidan, bk. 21, p. 485.
[2] Sleidan, bk. 21, pp. 491, 492.
[3] Ibid., p. 492.
[4] Sleidan, bk. 21, p. 492.
[5] Ibid p.484
[6] Formulaire de consentemen dans la doctrine de la Sainte Cene entre les Eglises de Zurich et de Geneve." (Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 370-378.)
[7] Ruchat, tom. 5, p. 379. Beza, Calvini Vita, ann. 1549. Bungener, p. 297.
[8] Some of the Lutherans accused Calvin of having changed sides, and become a convert to Zwingli. To show that the charge is without foundation, Ruchat quotes Calvin's statements of the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, first in 1535, in the Institutes, and secondly in 1537, in the Formulary of Union presented to Bern. These are to the following effect:—First: "In the Lord's Supper there is neither transubstantiation, nor con-substantiation, nor impanation, nor any other change physical or corporeal." Second: "The Sacrament is not an empty sign, but in it we truly partake of the body and blood of Christ by faith." (Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 379, 380.) Similar is his statement to Bullinger: "We are thereby made partakers of the body and blood of Christ, so that he dwells in us and we in him, and thus enjoy his universal benefits." (P. Henry, vol. 2, pp. 78, 79.)
[9] "Miraculum Italiae."
[10] "John a Lasco was a member of a Polish family which had given many distinguished names to the State, the camp, and the Church. He was the intimate friend of Erasmus and other scholars, a correspondent of the Queen of Navarre and other royal persons. Zwingli first sowed the seeds of the Protestant truth in his mind. He became the founder of the Reformed Church of Friesland, but his views on the Lord's Supper corresponding with those of the Swiss Church, he was persecuted by the Lutherans. He was invited to England by the Protector Somerset and Archbishop Cranmer. He left England on the accession of Queen Mary, and ultimately settled in Poland, where he labored, not without success, in the Reformation of the Polish Church. (See Strype, Memorials of Cranmer; M c Crie, Italy; Krasinski, Slavonia.)
[11] Daughter of Louis XII., and who but for the Salic law, or as she herself expressed it, the circumstance that nature had denied her a beard, would have been sovereign of France.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 19
[1] Not to be confounded, as Lupus has done, with Andrew Servetus, Professor of Law at Bologna, and afterwards Senator of the Kingdom of Arragon.
[2] Henricus Ab. Allwoerden, Historia Michaelis Serveti, p. 7; Helmstadt, 1727.
[3] Allwoerden, p. 33.
[4] Ibid., p.39.
[5] Bungener, p. 240. His theory of the circulation of the blood occurs in bk. 5 of the above work. It is given by Allwoerden in the appendix to his Historia Michaelis Serveti, pp. 232-234. A striking proof, surely, of the subtle, penetrating intellect of the man, and of the benefits he might have conferred on the world, had his genius been wisely directed.
[6] Allwoerden, pp. 23-26. P. Henry, 2, pp. 167-176.
[7] De Trin. Error., lib. 7, fol. 3, 6—apud P. Henry, vol. 2, pp. 167-169.
[8] Allwoerden, p. 42.
[9] Letters of Calvin—Jules Bonnet, vol. 2, No. 154: "Sed nolo fidera meam interponere, nam si venerit, modo valeat mea authoritas, vivum exire non paitar." The original letter is in the Bibliotheque du Rot at Paris. The author was told by his late friend, the younger McCrie, that he examined the letter, and was sorrowfully convinced of its authenticity. Bolsec quotes a letter of Calvin's to Viret to the same effect, but its authenticity is doubtful.
[10] The doom which the Reformers awarded to others for false dogmas, they accepted for themselves, should they teach what was contrary to the faith. "When I read Paul's statement," says Farel, writing to Calvin, "that he did not refuse to suffer death if he had in any way deserved it, I saw clearly that I must be prepared to suffer death if I should teach anything contrary to the doctrine of piety. And I added that I should be most worthy of any punishment whatever if I should seduce any one from the faith and doctrine of Christ." (8th September, 1553— Calvini Op., tom. 9, p. 71.) If we condemn the Reformers for their intolerance, we surely cannot but admire their devotion.
[11] Allwoerden, p. 54.
[12] "One of the syndics, at my instigation, committed him to prison." (To Sultzer, 9th September, 1553.) Spon, in his History of Geneva, says that Servetus had begun to dogmatise in the city. Bolsec says that he was arrested on the day of his arrival. It is now generally admitted that he remained a month in Geneva.
[13] Registers of the Council, 14th August, 1553.
[14] Calvin, Refut. Err. Servet., p. 517.
[15] P. Henry, vol. 2, p. 194.
[16] P. Henry, vol. 2, p. 195.
[17] Allwoerden, p. 71.
[18] August 20th, 1553.
[19] Calvin, Refut. Err. Servet., p. 522.
[20] Relation du Proces Criminel Intente a Geneve en 1553, contra Michael Servet, redigdee d'apres les documents originaux, par Albert Rilliet; Geneve, 1844.
VOLUME SECOND- BOOK FOURTEENTH- CHAPTER 20
[1] Rilliet, Relation du Proces Criminel, etc., p. l60.
[2] Ibid., p. 162.
[3] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 38;
[4] Rilliet, p. 164. Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 38.
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