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CALVIN, JOHN (1509-1564)
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See also:CALVIN, See also: In dedicating to him his Commentary on the First See also:Epistle to the See also:Thessalonians, as " eximiae pietatis et doctrinae viro," he declares that so had he been aided by his instruction that whatever subsequent.progress he had made he only regarded as received from him, and " this," he adds, " I wish to testify to posterity that if any utility accrue to any from my writings they may acknowledge it as having i[i See also:part flowed from thee." From the College de la Marche he removed to the College de Montaigu,' where the See also:atmosphere was more ecclesiastical and where he had for instructor a Spaniard who is described as a man of learning and to whom Calvin was indebted for some See also:sound training in dialectics and the scholastic See also:philosophy. He speedily outstripped all his competitors in grammatical studies, and by his skill and acumen as a student of philosophy, and in the college disputations gave fruitful promise of that consummate excellence as a reasoner in the See also:department of 'speculative truth which he afterwards displayed. Among his See also:friends were the Hangests (especially See also:Claude), See also:Nicolas and See also:Michel Cop, sons of the See also: He appears to have been not a little elated by his early promotion, and although not ordained, he preached several sermons to the See also:people. But though the career.of ecclesiastical preferment was thus early opened to him, Calvin was destined not to become a See also:priest. A See also:change came over the mind both of his father and himself respecting his future career. Gerard Cauvin began to suspect that he had not chosen the most lucrative profession for his son, and that the See also:law offered to a youth of his talents and See also:industry a more promising See also:sphere.' He was also now out of favour with the cathedral See also:chapter at Noyon. It is said also that John himself, on the See also:advice of his relative, Pierre Robert Olivetan, the first translator of the See also:Bible into French, had begun to study the Scriptures and to dissent from the See also:Roman See also:worship. At any See also:rate he readily complied with his father's See also:suggestion, and removed from Paris to See also: By Wolmar Calvin was taught See also:Greek, and introduced to the study of the New Testament in the See also:original, a service which he gratefully acknowledges in one of his printed See also:works.' The conversation of Wolmar may also have been of use to him in his See also:consideration of the doctrines of the See also:Reformation, which were now beginning to be widely diffused through France. Twelve years had elapsed since See also:Luther had published his theses against indulgences—twelve years of intense excitement and anxious discussion, not in See also:Germany only, but in almost all the adjacent countries. In France there had not been as yet any overt revolt against the See also: 4 Jo. Calvini Vita, sub init. 5 Epist. Ded., Comment in Ep. II. ad Corinthios praefix. 72 brought up. It was formerly thought that Calvin published this See also:work with a view to See also:influence the king to put a stop to the attacks on the Protestants, but there is nothing in the See also:treatise itself or in the commentary to favour this See also:opinion. Soon after the publication of his first book Calvin returned to Orleans, where he stayed for a year, perhaps again reading law, and still undecided as to his life's work. He visited Noyon in August 1533, and by See also:October of the same year was settled again in Paris. Here and now his destiny became certain. The conservative See also:theology was becoming discredited, and humanists like Jacques Lefevre of Etaples (See also:Faber Stapulensis) and Gerard Roussel were favoured by the See also:court under the influence of See also:Margaret of See also:Angouleme, See also:queen of See also:Navarre and See also:sister of Francis I. Calvin's old friend, Nicolas Cop, had just been elected See also:rector of the university and had to deliver an oration according to See also:custom in the church of the Mathurins, on the feast of All See also:Saints. The oration (certainly influenced but hardly composed by Calvin) was in effect a See also:defence of the reformed opinions, especially of the See also:doctrine of See also:justification by faith alone. It is to the See also:period between April 1532 and See also:November 1533, and in particular to the time of his second sojourn at Orleans, that we may most fittingly assign the See also:great change in Calvin which he describes (Praef. ad Psalmos; See also:opera xxxi. 21-24) as his "sudden con-version" and attributes to See also:direct divine agency. It must have been at least after his Commentary on Seneca's De Clementia that his See also:heart was " so subdued and reduced to docility that in comparison with his zeal for true piety he regarded all other studies with indifference, though not entirely forsaking them. Though himself a beginner, many flocked to him to learn the pure doctrine, and he began to seek some hiding-place and means of withdrawal from people." This indeed was forced upon him, for Cop's address was more than the conservative party could See also:bear, and Cop, being summoned to appear before the See also:parlement of Paris, found it necessary, as he failed to secure the support either of the king, or of the university, to make his See also:escape to See also:Basel. An attempt was at the same time made to seize Calvin, but, being forewarned of the See also:design by his friends, he also made his escape. His See also:room in the College Fortet, however, was searched, and his books and papers seized, to the imminent peril of some of his friends, whose letters were found in his repositories. He went to Noyon, but, proceedings against him being dropped, soon returned to Paris. But desiring both See also:security and solitude for study he See also:left the city again about New Year of 1534 and became the See also:guest of See also: Now, however, he had to decide whether, like Roussel and other of his friends, he should strive to combine the new doctrines with a position in the old church, or whether he should definitely break away from Rome. His mind was made up, and on the 4th of May he resigned his chaplaincy at Noyon and his rectorship at Pont 1'Eveque. Towards the end of the same See also:month he was arrested and suffered two short terms of imprisonment, the charges against him being not strong enough to be pressed. He seems to have gone next to Paris, staying perhaps with See also:Etienne de la Forge, a Protestant See also:merchant who suffered for his faith in See also:February 1535. To this time belongs the See also:story of the proposed See also:meeting between Calvin and the See also:Spanish reformer See also:Servetus. Calvin's movements at this time are difficult to trace, but he visited both Orleans and See also:Poitiers, and each visit marked a See also:stage in his development. The See also:Anabaptists of Germany had spread into France, and were disseminating many See also:wild and fanatical opinions among those who had seceded from the Church of Rome. Among other notions which they had imbibed was that of a See also:sleep of the soul after death. To Calvin this notion appeared so pernicious that he. composed a treatise in refutation of it, under the title of Psychopannychia. The See also:preface to this treatise is dated Orleans 1534, but it was not printed till 1542. In it he chiefly dwells upon the See also:evidence from Scripture in favour of the belief that the soul retains its intelligent consciousness after its separation from the body—passing by questions of philosophical See also:speculation, as tending on such a subject only to See also:minister to an idle curiosity. At Poitiers Calvin gathered See also:round him a See also:company of cultured and See also:gentle men whom in private intercourse he influenced considerably. Here too in a grotto near the See also:town he for the first time celebrated the communion in the Evangelical Church of France, using a piece of the See also:rock as a table.
The year 1534 was thus decisive for Calvin. From this time forward his influence became supreme, and all who had accepted the reformed doctrines in France turned to him for counsel and instruction, attracted not only by his See also:power as a teacher, but still more, perhaps because they saw in him so full a development of the See also:Christian life according to the evangelical See also:model. See also:Renan, no prejudiced See also:judge, pronounces him " the most Christian man of his time," and attributes to this his success as a reformer. Certain it is that already he had become conspicuous as a See also:prophet of the new religion; his life was in danger, and he was obliged to seek safety in See also:flight. In company with his friend Louis du Tillet, whom he had again gone to Angouleme to visit, he set out for Basel. On their way they were robbed by one of their servants, and it was only by borrowing ten crowns from their other servant that they were enabled to get to See also:Strassburg, and thence to Basel. Here Calvin was welcomed by the See also:band of scholars and theologians who had conspired to make that city the See also:Athens of Switzerland, and especially by See also:Oswald See also:Myconius, the See also:chief pastor, Pierre Viret and Heinrich See also:Bullinger. Under the aupices and guidance of See also:Sebastian See also:Munster, Calvin now gave himself to the study of Hebrew.
Francis I., desirous to continue the suppression of the Protest-ants but anxious, because of his strife with See also: The earliest French edition known is that of 1540, and this was after the work had been much enlarged, and several Latin editions had appeared. In its first form the work consisted of only six chapters, and was intended merely as a brief See also:manual of Christian doctrine. The chapters follow a traditional See also:scheme of religious teaching: (I) The Law, (as in the Ten Words), (2) Faith (as in the Apostles' Creed) (3) See also:Prayer, (4) the Sacraments; to these were added (5) False Sacraments, (6) Christian See also:liberty, ecclesiastical power and civil See also:administration. The closing chapters of the work are more polemical than the earlier ones. His indebtedness to Luther is of course great, but his spiritual kinship with Martin See also:Bucer of
' This edition forms a small 8vo of 514 pages, and 6 pages of See also:index. It appeared at Basel from the press of See also: Something also he owed to Scotus and other medieval schoolmen. The book appeared anonymously, the author having, as he himself says, nothing in view beyond furnishing a statement of the faith of the persecuted Protestants, whom he saw cruelly cut to pieces by impious and perfidious court parasites.' In this work, though produced when the author was only twenty-six years of age, we find a See also:complete outline of the Calvinist theological See also:system. In none of the later editions, nor in any of his later works do we find reason to believe that he ever changed his views on any essential point from what they were at the period of its first publication. Such an instance of maturity of mind and of opinion at so early an age would be remarkable under any circumstances; but in Calvin's See also:case it is rendered peculiarly so by the shortness of the time which had elapsed since he gave himself to theological studies. It may be doubted also if the See also:history of literature presents us with another instance of a book written at so early an age, which has exercised such a prodigious influence upon the opinions and practices both of contemporaries and of posterity. After a short visit (April 1536) to the court of Renee, duchess of See also:Ferrara (See also:cousin to Margaret of Navarre), which at that time afforded an See also:asylum to several learned and pious fugitives from persecution, Calvin returned through Basel to France to arrange his affairs before finally taking farewell of his native See also:country. His intention was to See also:settle at Strassburg or Basel, and to devote himself to study. But being unable, in consequence of the See also:war between Francis I. and Charles V., to reach Strassburg by the ordinary route, he with his younger See also:brother See also:Antoine and his See also:half-sister See also:Marie journeyed to See also:Lyons and so to Geneva, making for Basel. In Geneva his progress was arrested, and his See also:resolution to pursue the quiet path of studious See also:research was dispelled by what he calls the " formidable obtestation " of See also:Guillaume See also:Farel.' After many struggles and no small suffering, this energetic spirit had succeeded in planting the evangelical See also:standard at Geneva; and anxious to secure the aid of such a man as Calvin, he entreated him on his arrival to relinquish his design of going farther, and to devote himself to the work in that city. Calvin at first declined, alleging as an excuse his need of securing more time for See also:personal improvement, but ultimately, believing that he was divinely called to this task and that " See also:God had stretched forth His See also:hand upon me from on high to See also:arrest me," he consented to remain at Geneva. He hurried to Basel, transacted some business, and returned to Geneva in August 1536. He at once began to ex-See also:pound the epistles of St See also:Paul in the church of St Pierre, and after about a year was also elected preacher by the magistrates with the consent of the people, an office which he would not accept until it had been repeatedly pressed upon him. His services seem to have been rendered for some time gratuitously, for in February 1537 there is an entry in the city registers to the effect that six crowns had been voted to him, " since he has as yet hardly received anything." Calvin was in his twenty-eighth year when he was thus constrained to settle at Geneva; and in this city the rest of his life, with the exception of a brief See also:interval, was spent. The See also:post to which he was thus called was not an easy one. Though the people of Geneva had cast off the obedience of Rome, it was largely a See also:political revolt against the See also:duke of See also:Savoy, and they were still (says Beza) " but very imperfectly enlightened in divine knowledge; they had as yet hardly emerged from the filth of the papacy."' This laid them open to the incursions of those fanatical teachers, whom the excitement attendant upon the Reformation had called forth, and who hung mischievously upon the See also:rear of the reforming See also:body. To obviate the evils thence resulting, Calvin, in See also:union with Farel, See also:drew up a condensed statement of Christian doctrine consisting of twenty-one articles. This the citizens were summoned, in parties of ten each, to profess and swear to as the See also:confession of their faith—a See also:process which, though not in accordance with See also:modern notions of the best way of establishing men in the faith, was gone through, Calvin tells us, " with much See also:satisfaction." As the people took this See also:oath Praef. ad Psalmos. 2 Ibid. Beza, Vit. Calv. an. 1536.in the capacity of citizens, we may see here the basis laid for that theocratic system which subsequently became peculiarly characteristic of the Genevan polity. Deeply convinced of the importance of education for the young, Calvin and his coadjutors were solicitous to establish See also:schools throughout the city, and to enforce on parents the sending of their See also:children to them; and as he had no faith in education apart from religious training, he drew up a See also:catechism of Christian doctrine which the children had to learn whilst they were receiving See also:secular instruction. Of the troubles which arose from fanatical teachers, the chief proceeded from the efforts of the Anabaptists; a public disputation was held on the 16th and 17th of March 1537, and so excited the populace that the See also:Council of Two See also:Hundred stopped it, declared the Anabaptists vanquished and drove them from the city. About the same time also, the See also:peace of Calvin and his friends was much disturbed and their work interrupted by Pierre Caroli, another native of See also:northern France, who, though a man of loose principle and belief, had been appointed chief pastor at See also:Lausanne and was discrediting the See also:good work done by Pierre Viret in that city. Calvin went to Viret's aid and brought Caroli before the commissioners of See also:Bern on a See also:charge of advocating prayers for the dead as a means of their earlier resurrection. Caroli brought a See also:counter-charge against the Geneva divines of Sabellianism and Arianism, because they would not enforce the Athanasian creed, and had not used the words " Trinity " and " See also:Person " in the confession they had See also:drawn up. It was a struggle between the thoroughgoing humanistic reformer who drew his creed solely from the " word of God " and the merely semi-Protestant reformer who looked on the old creed as a priceless heritage. In a See also:synod held at Bern the See also:matter was fully discussed, when a See also:verdict was given in favour of the Geneva divines, and Caroli deposed from his office and banished. He returned to France, rejoined the Roman communion and spent the rest of his life in passing to and from the old faith and the new. Thus ended an affair which seems to have occasioned Calvin much more uneasiness than the character of his assailant, and the See also:manifest false-See also:hood of the charge brought against him, would seem to justify. Two brief See also:anti-Romanist tracts, one entitled De fugiendis impiorum sacris, the other De sacerdotio papali abj%ciendo, were also published early in this year. Hardly was the affair of Caroli settled, when new and severer trials came upon the Genevan Reformers. The austere simplicity of the See also:ritual which Farel had introduced, and to which Calvin had conformed; the strictness with which the ministers sought to enforce not only the See also:laws of morality, but certain sumptuary regulations respecting the See also:dress and mode of living of the citizens; and their determination in spiritual matters and ecclesiastical ceremonies not to submit to the least dictation from the civil power, led to violent dissensions. Amidst much party strife Calvin perhaps showed more youthful impetuosity than experienced skill. He and his colleagues refused to ad-minister the See also:sacrament in the Bernese form, i.e. with unleavened See also:bread, and on See also:Easter See also:Sunday, 1538, declined to do so at all because of the popular tumult. For this they were banished from the city. They went first to Bern, and soon after to See also:Zurich, where a synod of the Swiss pastors .had been convened. Before this See also:assembly they pleaded their cause, and stated what were the points on which they were prepared to insist as needful for the proper discipline of the church. They declared that they would yield in the matter of ceremonies so far as to employ unleavened bread in the See also:eucharist, to use fonts in See also:baptism, and to allow festival days, provided the people might pursue their ordinary avocations after public service. These Calvin re•• garded as matters of indifference, provided the magistrates did not make them of importance, by seeking to enforce them; and he was the more willing to concede them, because he hoped thereby to meet the wishes of the Bernese brethren whose ritual was less See also:simple than that established by Farel at Geneva. But he and his colleagues insisted, on the other hand. that for the proper See also:maintenance of discipline, there should be a See also:division of parishes—that excommunications should be permitted, and should be under the power of elders chosen by the council, in See also:conjunction with the clergy—that order should be observed in the See also:admission of preachers—and that only the See also:clergy should officiate in ordination by the laying on of hands. It was proposed also, as conducive to the welfare of the church, that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper should be administered more frequently, at least once every month, and that congregational singing of See also:psalms should be practised in the churches. On these terms the synod interceded with the Genevese to restore their pastors; but through the opposition of some of the Bernese (especially See also:Peter Kuntz, the pastor of that city) this was frustrated, and a second See also:edict of banishment was the only response. Calvin and Farel betook themselves, under these circumstances, to Basel, where they soon after separated, Farel to go to Neuchatel and Calvin to Strassburg. At the latter place Calvin resided till the autumn of 1541, occupying himself partly in See also:literary exertions, partly as a preacher and especially an organizer in the French church, and partly as a lecturer on theology. These years were not the least valuable in his experience. In 1539 he attended Charles V.'s See also:conference on Christian See also:reunion at See also:Frankfort as the See also:companion of Bucer, and in the following year he appeared at See also:Hagenau and See also:Worms, as the delegate from the city of Strassburg. He was See also:present also at the See also:diet at See also:Regensburg, where he deepened his acquaintance with See also:Melanchthon, and formed with him a friendship which lasted through life. He also did something to relieve the persecuted Protestants of France. It is to this period of his life that we owe a revised and enlarged form of his Institutes, his Commentary on the Epistle to the See also:Romans, and his Tract on the Lord's Supper. Notwithstanding his manifold engagements, he found time to attend to the tenderer affections; for it was during his residence at Strassburg that he married, in August 1540, Idelette de Bure, the widow of one Jean Stordeur of See also:Liege, whom he had converted from Anabaptism. In her Calvin found, to use his own words, " the excellent companion of his life," a " precious help " to him amid his manifold labours and frequent infirmities. She died in 1549, to the great grief of her See also:husband, who never ceased to mourn her loss. Their only See also:child Jacques, born on the 28th of July 1542, lived only a few days. During Calvin's absence disorder and irreligion had prevailed in Geneva. An attempt was made by See also:Cardinal Jacopo See also:Sadoleto (1477-1547), See also:bishop of See also:Carpentras, to take See also:advantage of this so as to restore the papal supremacy in that See also:district; but this design Calvin, at the request of the Bernese authorities, who had been consulted by those of Geneva, completely frustrated, by See also:writing such a reply to the letter which the bishop had addressed to the Genevese, as constrained him to desist from all further efforts. The letter had more than a See also:local or temporary reference. It was a popular yet thoroughgoing defence of the whole Protest-See also:ant position, perhaps the best apologia for the Reformation that was ever written. He seems also to have kept up his connexion with Geneva by addressing letters of counsel and comfort to the faithful there who continued to regard him with See also:affection. It was whilst he was still at Strassburg that there appeared at Geneva a translation of the Bible into French, bearing Calvin's name, but in reality only revised and corrected by him from the version of Olivetan. Meanwhile the way was opening for his return. Those who had driven him from the city gradually lost power and office. Farel worked unceasingly for his recall. After much hesitation, for Strassburg had strong claims, he yielded and returned to Geneva, where he was received with the utmost See also:enthusiasm (September 13, 1541). He entered upon his work with a See also:firm determination to carry out those reforms which he had originally purposed, and to set up in all its integrity that form of church polity which he had carefully matured during his residence at Strassburg. He now became the See also:sole directive spirit in the church at Geneva. Farel was retained by the Neuchatelois, and Viret, soon after Calvin's return, re-moved to Lausanne. His duties were thus rendered exceedingly onerous, and his labour became excessive. Besides preaching every day in each alternate See also:week, he taught theology three days in the week, attended weekly meetings of his See also:consistory, read the Scriptures once a week in the See also:congregation, carried on anextensive See also:correspondence on a multiplicity of subjects, prepared commentaries on the books of Scripture, and was engaged repeatedly in controversy with the opponents of his opinions. " I have not time," he writes to a friend, " to look out of my See also:house at the blessed See also:sun, and if things continue thus I shall forget what sort of See also:appearance it has. When I have settled my usual business, I have so many letters to write, so many questions to See also:answer, that many a See also:night is spent without any offering of sleep being brought to nature." It is only necessary here to See also:sketch the leading events of Calvin's life after his return to Geneva. He recodified the Genevan laws and constitution, and was the leading spirit in the negotiations with Bern that issued in the treaty of February 1544. Of the controversies in which he embarked, one of the most important was that in which he defended his doctrine concerning See also:predestination and See also:election. His first antagonist on this See also:head was See also:Albert Pighius, a Romanist, who, resuming the controversy between Erasmus and Luther on the freedom of the will, violently attacked Calvin for the views he had expressed on that subject. Calvin replied to him in a work published in 1543, in which he defends his own opinions at length, both by See also:general reasonings and by an See also:appeal to both Scripture and the Fathers, especially See also:Augustine. So potent were his reasonings that Pighius, though owing nothing to the gentleness or See also:courtesy of Calvin, was led to embrace his views. A still more vexatious and protracted controversy on the same subject arose in 1551• See also:Jerome See also:Hermes Bolsec, a Carmelite See also:friar, having renounced Romanism, had fled from France to Veigy, a village near Geneva, where he practised as a physician. Being a zealous opponent of predestinarian views, he expressed his criticisms of Calvin's teaching on the subject in one of the public conferences held each See also:Friday. Calvin replied with much vehemence, and brought the matter before the civil authorities. The council were at a loss which course to take; not that they doubted which of the disputants was right, for they all held by the views.of Calvin, but they were unable to determine to what extent and in which way Bolsec should be punished for his See also:heresy. The question was submitted to the churches at Basel, Bern, Zurich and Neuchatel, but they also, to Calvin's disappointment, were divided in their See also:judgment, some counselling severity, others gentle See also:measures. In the end Bolsec was banished from Geneva; he ultimately rejoined the Roman communion and in 1577 avenged himself by a particularly slanderous See also:biography of Calvin. Another painful controversy was that with Sebastien Castellio (1515-1563), a teacher in the Genevan school and a scholar of real distinction. He wished to enter the preaching See also:ministry but was excluded by Calvin's influence because he had criticized the See also:inspiration of the See also:Song of See also:Solomon and the Genevan See also:interpretation of the clause " he descended into See also:hell." The bitterness thus aroused developed into life-See also:long enmity. During all this time also the less strict party in the city and in the council did not cease to harry the reformer. But the most memorable of all the controversies in which Calvin was engaged was that into which he was brought in 1553 with See also:Michael Servetus (q.v.). After many wanderings, and after having been condemned to death for heresy at See also:Vienne, whence he was fortunate enough to make his escape, Servetus arrived in August 1553 at Geneva on his way to See also:Naples. He was recognized in church and soon after, at Calvin's instigation, arrested. The charge of See also:blasphemy was founded on certain statements in a book published by him in 1553, entitled Christianismi Restitutio, in which he animadverted on the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, and advanced sentiments strongly savouring of See also:Pantheism. The story of his trial is told elsewhere (see See also:art. Sxav ruS), but it must be noted here that the struggle was something more than a doctrinal one. The cause of Servetus was taken up by Calvin's Genevan foes headed by Philibert Berthelier, and became a test of the relative strength of the IivaI forces and of the permanence of Calvin's See also:control. That Calvin was actuated by personal spite and animosity against Servetus himself may be open to discussion; we have his own See also:express See also:declaration that, after Servetus was convicted, he used no urgency that he should be put to death, and at their last inter-view he told Servetus that he never had avenged private injuries, and assured him that if he would repent it would not be his See also:fault if all the pious did not give him their hands.' There is the fact also that Calvin used his endeavour to have the See also:sentence which had been pronounced against Servetus mitigated, death by burning being regarded by him as an " atrocity," for which he sought to substitute death by the See also:sword.2 It can be justly charged against Calvin in this matter that he took the initiative in bringing on the trial of Servetus, that as his accuser he prosecuted the suit against him with undue severity, and that he approved the sentence which condemned Servetus to death. When, however, it is remembered that the unanimous decision of the Swiss churches and of the Swiss See also:state governments was that Servetus deserved to See also:die; that the general See also:voice of Christendom was in favour of this; that even such a man as Melanchthon affirmed the See also:justice of the sentence; 5 that an eminent See also:English divine of the next age should declare the process against him " just and See also:honourable,"' and that only a few voices here and there were at the time raised against it, many will be ready to accept the judgment of See also:Coleridge, that the death of Servetus was not " Calvin's See also:guilt especially, but the See also:common opprobrium of all See also:European Christendom." 5 Calvin was also involved in a protracted and somewhat vexing dispute with the See also:Lutherans respecting the Lord's Supper, which ended in the separation of the evangelical party into the two great sections of Lutherans and Reformed,—the former holding that in the eucharist the body and See also:blood of See also:Christ are objectively and consubstantially present, and so are actually partaken of by the communicants, and the latter that there is only a virtual presence of the body and blood of Christ, and consequently only a spiritual participation thereof through faith. In addition to these controversies on points of faith, he was for many years greatly disquieted, and sometimes even endangered, by the opposition offered by the libertine party in Geneva to the ecclesiastical discipline which he had established there. His system of church polity was essentially theocratic; it assumed that every member of the state was also under the discipline of the church; and he asserted that the right of exercising this discipline was vested exclusively in the consistory or body of preachers and elders. His attempts to carry out these views brought him into collision both with the authorities and with the populace,—the latter being not unnaturally restive under the restraints imposed upon their liberty by the vigorous system of church discipline, and the former being inclined to retain in their own hands a portion of that power in things spiritual which Calvin was See also:bent on placing exclusively in the hands of the church rulers. His dauntless courage, his perseverance, and his earnestness at length prevailed, and he had the satisfaction, before he died, of seeing his favourite system of church polity firmly established, not only at Geneva, but in other parts of Switzerland, and of knowing that it had been adopted substantially by the Reformers in France and See also:Scotland. The men whom he trained at Geneva carried his principles into almost every country in See also:Europe, and in varying degree these principles did much for the cause of civil liberty.6 Nor was it only in religious matters that Calvin busied himself; nothing was indifferent to him that concerned the welfare and good order of the state or the advantage of its citizens. His work embraced everything; he was consulted on every affair, great and small, that came before the council,—on questions of law, See also:police, See also:economy, See also:trade, and manufactures, no less than on questions of doctrine and church polity. To him the city owed her trade in cloths and velvets, from which so much See also:wealth accrued to her
' Fidelis Expositio Errorum Serveti, sub init. Calvini, Opp. t. ix. 2 Calvin to Farel, 20th Aug. 1553.
Tuo judicio prorsus assentior. Affirmo etiam vestros magi-stratus juste fecisse quod hominem blasphemum, re ordine judicata, interfecerunt.—Melanchthon to Calvin, 14th Oct. 1554.
' See also: 27, vol. i. p. 288 (ed. See also:Cambridge, 1847). 5 Notes on English Divines, vol. i. p. 49. See also Table Talk, vol. ii. p. 282 (ed. 1835). 6 W. Walker, John Calvin, pp. 403-8.citizens; sanitary regulations were introduced by him which made Geneva the admiration of all visitors; and in him she reverences the founder of her university. This institution was in a sense Calvin's crowning work. It added religious education to the evangelical preaching and the thorough discipline already established, and so completed the reformer's ideal of a Christian See also:commonwealth.
Amidst these multitudinous cares and occupations, Calvin found time to write a number of works besides those provoked by the various controversies in which he was engaged. The most numerous of these were of an exegetical character. Including discourses taken down from his lips by faithful auditors, we have from him expository comments or homilies on nearly all the books of Scripture, written partly in Latin and partly in French. Though naturally knowing nothing of the modern See also:idea of a progressive See also:revelation, his judiciousness, penetration, and tact in eliciting his author's meaning, his precision, condensation, and concinnity as an expositor, the accuracy of his learning, the closeness of his reasoning, and the elegance of his See also:style, all unite to confer a high value on his exegetical works. The See also:series began with Romans in 1540 and ended with See also:Joshua in 1564. In 1558–1559 also, though in very See also:ill See also:health, he finally perfected the Institutes.
The incessant and exhausting labours to which Calvin gave himself could not but tell on his fragile constitution. Amid many sufferings, however, and frequent attacks of sickness, he manfully pursued his course; nor was it till his frail body, torn by many and painful diseases — See also:fever, See also:asthma, See also: With his usual disinterestedness he refused to receive his stipend, now that he was no longer able to See also:discharge the duties of his office. In the midst of his sufferings, however, his zeal and See also:energy kept him in continual occupation; when expostulated with for such unseasonable toil, he replied., " Would you that the Lord should find me idle when He comes ? " After he had retired from public labours he lingered for some months, enduring the severest agony without a murmur, and cheerfully attending to all the duties of a private See also:kind which his diseases left him strength to discharge. On the 25th of April he made his will, on the 27th he received the Little Council, and on the 28th the Genevan ministers, in his sick-room; on the 2nd of May he wrote his last letter—to his old comrade Farel, who hastened from Neuchatel to see him once again. He spent much time in prayer and died quietly, in the arms of his faithful friend See also:Theodore Beza, on the evening of the 27th of May, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. The next day he was buried without pomp " in the common See also:cemetery called See also:Plain-palais " in a spot not now to be identified. Calvin was of See also:middle stature; his complexion was somewhat pallid and dark; his eyes, to the latest clear and lustrous, bespoke the acumen of his See also:genius. He was sparing in his See also:food and simple in his dress; he took but little sleep, and was capable of extraordinary efforts of intellectual toil. He had a most retentive memory and a very keen power of observation. He spoke without See also:rhetoric, simply, directly, but with great See also:weight. He had many acquaintances but few close friends. His private character was in See also:harmony with his public reputation and position. If somewhat severe and irritable, he was at the same time scrupulously just, truthful, and steadfast; he never deserted a friend or took an unfair advantage of an antagonist; and on befitting occasions he could be cheerful and even facetious among his intimates. " God gave him," said the Little Council after his death, " a character of great See also:majesty." " I have been a See also:witness of him for sixteen years," says Beza, " and I think I am fully entitled to say that in this man there was exhibited to all an example of the life and death of the Christian, such as it will not be easy to depreciate, such as it will be difficult to emulate." Though Calvin built his theology on the See also:foundations laid by earlier reformers, and especially by Luther and Bucer, his See also:peculiar gifts of learning, of See also:logic and of style made him pre-eminently the theologian of the new religion. The following may be regarded as his characteristic tenets, though not all are peculiar to him. The dominant thought is the See also:infinite and transcendent See also:sovereignty of God, to know whom is the supreme end of human endeavour. God is made known to man especially by the Scriptures, whose writers were " sure and See also:authentic amanuenses of the See also:Holy Spirit." To the Spirit speaking therein the Spirit-illumined soul of man makes response. While God is the source of all good, man as a sinner is guilty and corrupt. The first man was made in the See also:image and likeness of God, which not only implies man's superiority to all other creatures, but indicates his original purity, integrity and sanctity. From this state See also:Adam See also:fell, and in his fall involved the whole human See also:race descended from him. Hence depravity and corruption, diffused through all parts of the soul, attach to all men, and this first makes them See also:obnoxious to the anger of God, and then comes forth in works which the Scripture calls works of the flesh (Gal. v. 19). Thus all are held vitiated and perverted in all parts of their nature, and on See also:account of such corruption deservedly condemned before God, by whom nothing is accepted See also:save righteousness innocence, and purity. Nor is that a being boundforanother's offence; for when it is said that we through Adam's See also:sin have become obnoxious to the divine judgment, it is not to be taken as if we, being ourselves See also:innocent and blameless, bear the fault of his offence, but that, we having been brought under a curse through his trans- gression, he is said to have See also:bound us. From him, however, not only as See also:punishment overtaken us, but a pestilence instilled from him resides in us, to which punishment is justly due. Thus even infants, whilst they bring their own condemnation with them from their mother's womb, are bound not by another's but by their own fault. For though they have not yet brought forth the fruits of their iniquity, they have the See also:seed shut up in them ; See also:nay, their whole nature is a sort of seed of sin, therefore it cannot but be hateful and abominable to God (Instil. bk. ii, ch. i. See also:sect. 8). To redeem man from this state of guilt, and to recover him from corruption, the Son of God became incarnate, assuming man's nature into union with His own, so that in Him were two natures in one person. Thus incarnate He took on Him the offices of prophet, priest and king, and by His humiliation, obedience and suffering unto death, followed by His resurrection and See also:ascension to See also:heaven, He has perfected His work and fulfilled all that was required in a redeemer of men, so that it is truly affirmed that He has merited for man the See also:grace of salvation (bk. ii. ch. 13-17). But until a man is in some way really See also:united to Christ so as to partake of Him, the benefits of Christ's work cannot be attained by him. Now it is by the See also:secret and See also:special operation of the Holy Spirit that men are united to Christ and made members of His body. Through faith, which is a firm and certain See also:cognition of the divine benevolence towards us founded on the truth of the gracious promise in Christ, men are by the operation of the Spirit united to Christ and are made partakers of His death and resurrection, so that the old man is crucified with Him and they are raised to a new life, a life of righteousness and holiness. Thus joined to Christ the believer has life in Him and knows that he is saved, having the witness of the Spirit that he is a child of God, and having the promises, the certitude of which the Spirit had before impressed on the mind, sealed by the same Spirit on the heart (bk. iii. ch. 33-36). From faith proceeds repentance, which is the turning of our life to God, proceeding from a sincere and See also:earnest fear of God, and consisting in the See also:mortification of the flesh and the old man within us and a vivification of the Spirit. Through faith also the believer receives justification, his sins are forgiven, he is accepted of God, and is held by Him as righteous, the righteousness of Christ being imputed to him, and faith being the See also:instrument by which the man See also:lays hold on Christ, so that with His righteousness the man appears in God's sight as righteous. This imputed righteousness, however, is not disjoined from real personal righteousness, for regeneration and sanctification come to the believer from Christ no less than justification; the two blessings are not to be confounded, but neither are they to be disjoined. The assurance which the believer has of salvation he receives from the operation and witness of the Holy Spirit; but this again rests on the divine choice of the man to salvation; and this falls back on God's eternal See also:sovereign purpose, whereby He has predestined some to eternal life while the rest of mankind are predestined to condemnation and eternal death. Those whom God has chosen to life He effectually calls to salvation, and they are kept by Him in progressive faith and holiness unto the end (bk. iii. passim). The See also:external means or See also:aids by which God unites men into the fellowship of Christ, and sustains and advances those who believe, are the church and its ordinances, especially the sacraments. The church universal is the multitude gathered from diverse nations, which though divided by distance of time and place, agree in one common faith, and it is bound by the tie of the same religion ; and wherever the word of God is sincerely preached, and the sacraments are duly administered, according to Christ's See also:institute, therebeyond doubt is a church of the living God (bk. iv. ch. 1, sect. 7-11). The permanent See also:officers in the church are pastors and teachers, to the former of whom it belongs to preside over the discipline of the church, to administer the sacraments, and to admonish and exhort the members; while the latter occupy themselves with the exposition of Scripture, so that pure and wholesome doctrine may be retained. With them are to be joined for the See also:government of the church certain pious, See also:grave and holy men as a See also:senate in each church; and to others, as deacons, is to be entrusted the care of the poor. The election of the officers in a church is to be with the people, and those duly chosen and called are to be ordained by the laying on of the hands of the pastors (ch. 3, sect. 4-16). The sacraments are two—Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Baptism is the sign of See also:initiation whereby men are admitted into the society of the church and, being grafted into Christ, are reckoned among the sons of God; it serves both for the See also:confirmation of faith and as a confession before men. The Lord's Supper is a spiritual feast where Christ attests that He is the life-giving bread, by which our souls are fed unto true and blessed See also:immortality. That sacred communication of His flesh and blood whereby Christ transfuses into us His life, even as if it penetrated into our bones and marrow, He in the Supper attests and See also:seals; and that not by a vain or empty sign set before us. but there He puts forth the efficacy of His Spirit whereby He fulfils what He promises. In the See also:mystery of the Supper Christ is truly exhibited to us by the symbols of bread and See also:wine; and so His body and blood, in which He fulfilled all obedience for the obtaining of righteousness for us, are presented. There is no such presence of Christ in the Supper as that He is affixed to the bread or included in it or in any way circumscribed ; but whatever can express the true and substantial communication of the body and blood of the Lord, which is exhibited to believers under the said symbols of the Supper, is to be received, and that not as perceived by the See also:imagination only or See also:mental intelligence, but as enjoyed for the See also:aliment of the eternal life (bk. iv. ch. 15, 17). The course of time has substantially modified many of these positions. Even the churches which trace their descent from Calvin's work and faith no longer hold in their entirety his views on the See also:magistrate as the preserver of church purity, the utter depravity of human nature, the non-human character of the Bible, the dealing of God with man. But his system had an immense value in the history of Christian thought. It appealed to and evoked a high order of intelligence, and its insistence on personal individual salvation has See also:borne worthy See also:fruit. So also its insistence on the chief end of man " to know and do the will of God " made for the strenuous morality that helped to build up the modern See also:world. ' Its effects are most clearly seen in Scotland, in Puritan See also:England and in the New England states, but its influence was and is See also:felt among peoples that have little See also:desire or claim to be called Calvinist. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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