THE COUNTER-REFORMATION PREVAILS.--CALVIN AND FAREL REFUSE TO
GIVE THE LORD’S SUPPER.--THE PULPIT IS CLOSED TO THEM.
(APRIL 15 TO 20, 1538.)
[Sidenote: RESISTANCE OF CALVIN.]
The very circumstances which inspired the confidence of Berne were
exactly those which roused the resistance of Calvin. Those powerful and
magnificent lords could not believe that so dignified an intervention
would fail to secure submission; and Calvin could not consent that
the interests of the Church of Christ should be regulated by the
magistrate, like those of the highways and the soldiery. Besides,
in the present case, the question was about foreign magistrates. To
their intervention the citizen and the Christian could not but be
equally opposed. Calvin wished to maintain the principle of religious
liberty, and he requested that time should be allowed him to come to
an understanding with the other Churches. However, if the letter to
the ministers was unsuccessful, that sent to the council had a success
so abundant that it not only surpassed the hopes of the Bernese,
but crossed their desires and threw an obstacle in the way of their
projects. The syndics who had been named in a spirit hostile to the
reformers, and all the citizens who had placed them in office, were
delighted to see variance between Berne and Calvin and Farel. For them
it was a piece of real good fortune, although for the ministers it was
a grievous event. The two states, Berne and Geneva, acting in unison,
would soon get the better of two poor ministers. Further, the council
was at this time in a bad humor. The third preacher, the aged and
energetic Courault, who had remained at Geneva, had blamed the syndics
in one of his sermons, and it was resolved to reprimand him. It is safe
to rely, in this matter, on what the Registers state. It is not right
to receive, as some have done, the burlesque and lying imputations of
the notorious slanderer Bolsec, who, ‘after the example of Herostratos,
chose to pass down to posterity branded with infamy.’[597] The council
forbade Courault to preach. This was the state of things when the
letters from Berne arrived. The council immediately gave orders that
Calvin and Farel should appear before them on Friday, April 19. It
was the Holy week, and that day was the day of the Passion. This
consideration caused no hesitation on the part of the enemies of the
Reformation. As the holy supper was to be celebrated two days later on
Easter Sunday, they were anxious to hurry forward the business. The
ministers then found themselves between the anvil and the hammer; they
must submit or fall, and do which they would, they would be weakened
and lowered. The secretary having read the letter from Berne, the first
syndic declared to the reformers that the council was determined to
accede to the demand of that city, and to conform to the usages there
established with respect to ceremonies. Then he asked them if they
would themselves observe them, and requested them to answer Yes or No.
Calvin and Farel demanded the time necessary, not merely, as has been
asserted, for reflection on the subject, but also and especially, that
the question might be settled by the competent authorities, the Swiss
synod, which in ten days (April 29) was to be held at Zurich. Meanwhile
they begged that no innovation should be made until the next supper. In
making this request Calvin pledged himself to accept whatever should
be decreed by that legitimate authority. This was on his part a large
concession. To his Scriptural and just judgment it did not appear
consistent, after separating from Roman Catholicism, still to retain
any part of the system, even were it only a trifle, such as unleavened
bread, baptisteries, and festivals. To one of the latter, especially,
he felt great objection. He knew that small concessions lead on to
large ones, and he feared that Rome would act according to the proverb,
and if you gave an inch would take an ell. It is needless to repeat how
decided and firm Calvin was, and yet, out of love for peace and for
unity, he conceded to his adversaries what he might justly have refused
them. All he asked was that they would wait for ten days the decision
of the synodal authority. This, assuredly, was not saying No in an
absolute manner.[598] It was quite the reverse; and the adversaries
of Calvin ought rather to have wondered at his compliance than have
blamed him for his inflexible obstinacy. His request was fair, and it
ought to have been granted. But they would not listen to it. It was
ordered that the supper should be celebrated conformably to the Bernese
usage; and the council appointed the magistrates who were to take care
that it was thus celebrated in the churches of St. Peter, St. Gervais,
and Rive. It may be asked how it was that men who were by no means
remarkable for their attachment to traditional observances should be so
obstinate in sacrificing the ritual of Geneva to the ritual of Berne.
Impartial judges have said, ‘The Council had taken this resolution in
order to win over the Bernese and to implicate them in the opposition
to the reformers.’[599] We confess that this explanation appears to us
very probable.
[Sidenote: DISTURBANCES AT GENEVA.]
This decision was despotic, and in that very quality was in accordance
with the order which the councils intended to establish at Geneva, that
of _Césaropapia_, in which the prince and the magistrate, taking the
place of the pope, settle everything in the Church. The inflexibility
of the council on the one side and the firmness of the reformers on
the other came into collision, and the result was a shock to the
people which troubled their everyday life and could not, but lead to
a conflict. Those who formed the lowest section of the opposition,
excited and agitated, began to cry out against the resistance of the
ministers, and they thought that if the latter would not obey with a
good grace, they must be compelled to yield by terror and by force.
If the people were to express their will with energy, if they took up
arms, and filled the streets and massed themselves like roaring waves
in front of the houses of Farel, Calvin, and Courault, those men, no
matter what their strength might be, would have no choice but to give
way before that impetuous torrent. ‘Thereupon,’ says the chronicler
Rozet, ‘great excesses and blasphemies were committed. Dissolute men
went about the town by night in dozens, armed with arquebuses, which
they discharged in front of the ministers’ houses. They shouted, _The
Word of God!_ and after that, _The word of Andrew!_ They threatened
to throw them into the Rhone if they did not come to some agreement
with the magistrates respecting the ceremonies in question; and these
proceedings, all open and notorious, went unpunished.’[600] It is not
easy to ascertain what the cry, _The word of Andrew_, meant.[601]
The cry, _To the Rhone!_ was invariably heard at Geneva when popular
risings took place. Froment was greeted with it when he began to preach
the Gospel there; and some women would have thrown him _over the
bridge_ (_du pont en bas_) if a party of men had not rescued him. They
did not, indeed, fling every one into the Rhone whom they threatened;
but these cries could not but seem to Farel and Calvin a mournful
return for their great and severe labors.
[Sidenote: INDIGNATION OF COURAULT.]
These disorderly deeds had lamentable consequences. Neither Farel
nor Calvin complained of them. They had now at heart interests more
important than their own, more precious even than their lives. They
did not return evil for evil. But the former preacher to the Queen
of Navarre, the blind and aged Courault, was not so forbearing. He
likewise had heard these insults. A man of integrity and devoted to
duty, he had at the same time a heart easily wounded, and he knew how
to speak hard words. The night between Friday and Saturday, during
which these cries had resounded in the city, was not a pleasant or a
peaceful one for him. He was more irritated, perhaps, on account of
the indignities which were heaped upon Calvin and Farel than for what
concerned himself. Chagrin, disquietude, and anger kept him sleepless.
His blood was heated, his heart was incensed, his imagination inflamed.
‘Je me tourne et m’agite et ne peux nulle part
Trouver que l’insomnie, amère, impatiente,
Qu’un malaise inquiet et qu’une fièvre ardente.’[602]
The state of poor old Courault seems to be described in these lines.
To him these disorders were intolerable, and he said that if men
should hold their peace the very stones would cry aloud. He would cry
out, and cry out in the pulpit. True, that was forbidden him; but no
matter, in spite of the prohibition of men he would preach. He rose
very early and went to St. Peter’s church to perform the service of
six o’clock A.M., with no other preparation, alas! than the
distress and bitterness which had preyed on his mind through the
night. The character of his preaching was not such as was wanted for a
people so sensitive as the Genevese. His eloquence somewhat resembled
that of the monks to whose order he had belonged, which consisted,
for the most part, in making a noise and in shouting.[603] His mind
was not cultivated, but he had a glowing imagination, which animated
his discourse and enabled him to hit hard blows. Although he was of
a more serious turn, he shared, to some extent, the faults of the
most illustrious orators of the preceding period, Barletta, Maillard,
and Menot; and he sometimes attacked, as they did, the vices of his
hearers by satire occasionally delicate and occasionally coarse, but
always prompted by a good and grave intention. He would now discharge
his conscience. Let them put him in prison, banish him, or beat
him soundly; his soul, wearied with grief, must burst its bonds.
He uttered, doubtless, some excellent things, some true and pious
words; but, agitated as he was, he allowed himself to indulge in that
intemperate mode of speech which was then so common. With his spirit
still disturbed by those noisy and tumultuous crowds collected under
the windows of the reformers, from the midst of which came redoubled
shouts, jesting songs, insults, accusations, and menaces, he likened
them to the ‘kingdom of the frogs,’ that from the bosom of the marshes
croak and make a loud noise. Then recalling a vulgar phrase, the old
Frenchman, hardly escaped from the rough life of persecution, inquired
of the Genevese what they complained of,--they who were ‘like rats in
straw,’ that is to say, were folk greatly at their ease, possessing
everything they could wish and in want of nothing.[604] In another
passage, rising to a higher strain, and recalling the image of
Nebuchadnezzar, with its head of gold and its feet part of iron and
part of clay, fragile and broken by a little stone, he predicted to the
syndics and councils that as intrigue had placed them in office they
would not long retain their power. ‘You, gentlemen of the government,’
said he, ‘you have feet of wax.’ These feet, in his opinion, would soon
melt in the sunshine of their victory and prosperity. This comparison,
imitative of Biblical style, was not unbefitting to a preacher, and
the prophecy which it contained did not fail of accomplishment. At the
news of this minister preaching in defiance of the prohibition, and
at the report of his sayings, which were most likely misrepresented,
the government felt that they were insulted, and determined to act
rigorously. Officers of state went to the old man’s house, arrested
and took him to prison. It was the eve of Easter Day. It was customary
to make presents at that period; and this was the present which was
bestowed on the aged, noble, but free-spoken minister and confessor of
Christ, who had already experienced treatment too rough at the hands of
the adherents of the pope in the kingdom of France.[605]
[Sidenote: PROTEST AGAINST HIS IMPRISONMENT.]
The news of the imprisonment of Courault rapidly spread through Geneva,
and deeply affected the friends of the Reformation. A pastor in prison!
Yes, and justly, if he were guilty of any common offence. But he had
done what he believed to be his duty. From the Christian pulpit he
had rebuked scandalous excesses, and on that account he was committed
to prison, while those who were really guilty of them were let alone
and went unpunished.[606] It appears from the protocol of the 19th,
that two men, forming part of the band which had gone about singing by
night and had made disturbances at Rive, had been themselves placed
in confinement. But the place and the date of that affair prove that
it was on a quite different charge. The incarceration of Courault
filled Calvin and Farel with sorrow, for they esteemed their old and
venerable colleague, and they knew how much he had already suffered
for the truth’s sake. Some of the councillors and citizens friendly
to the Reformation resolved to protest against the imprisonment of
their pastor. Claude Savoye, Michel Sept, Lambert, Chautemps, Domaine
d’Arlod, Claude and Louis Bernard, Deserts, Claude Pertemps, and many
others joined Calvin and Farel, and they all went together in a long
procession to the Hôtel de Ville. They entered the hall of the council,
and found there two out of the four syndics, and these the men who were
most against them, Richardet and de Chapeaurouge.
Farel spoke first. He complained that they had acted ‘ill, wickedly,
and unjustly in putting Courault in prison,’ and demanded that the
Council of the Two Hundred should be assembled. The laymen thought
it strange that their adversaries should not be satisfied with
announcing, like Richardet, that they would not go to the preaching,
but should seem to intend also to deprive their fellow-citizens of
it by committing the preachers to prison. The notion that a syndic
should presume to hinder him from hearing the Word of God especially
irritated Michel Sept. ‘They shall preach!’ he said, vehemently.
Farel, remembering all that he had done and borne through long years
for this city of Geneva, to the emancipation of which he had probably
contributed more than any other man by his teaching, his courage, his
prayers, and his deeds, said to the magistrates, ‘Without me you would
not be what you are.’
The syndics replied that, as the pulpit had been interdicted to
Courault, and he had nevertheless preached that very morning, and had
announced that he should continue to do so, they would not set him at
liberty. The magistrates wished to see if this incident would furnish
them with an opportunity of attaining the end which they had set before
them. ‘Will you,’ they said to Farel and Calvin, ‘submit to the letters
and ordinances of the lords of Berne? In that case we might restore
to you your colleague.’ This bargain, which consisted in the release
to them of an innocent prisoner if they on their part would do what
they held to be wrong, appeared to the ministers a piece of shameful
trafficking. ‘We will do, in such matters, what God commands,’ they
replied. However, they were not willing to abandon their colleague.
They offered to give bail, that he might under that guarantee be set
at liberty. This proposition was a usual one in such cases, but the
magistrates declined to accept it, and the reason which they gave
for their refusal aggravated the harshness of the act. ‘Courault,’
they said, ‘is not a _citizen of Geneva_, and he is imprisoned _for
contempt of justice_.’ The members of the council were thoroughly bent
on getting rid of Courault, who was less prudent than his colleagues.
It appears from authentic documents, that they even offered Calvin to
wait, as to the question of ritual, for the decision of the synod of
Zurich, if he would consent that Courault should be deprived of his
office of preacher. This Calvin refused.[607] The petitioners withdrew,
much pained by the severity of the council towards their friend, and
some of the laymen, especially Lambert, complained aloud as they
quitted the Hôtel de Ville. They spoke of ‘_false witnesses_ who had
been examined; of _traitors_ in the general council; and it is well
known,’ they said, ‘who they are.’[608]
[Sidenote: FAILURE OF THE INTERVENTION.]
The council met after the departure of the reformers and their friends,
and again decided that the Lord’s supper should be celebrated the
next day, Easter Sunday, according to the rites established at Berne,
and not according to those of Geneva; and it decreed that, if the
ministers still refused to celebrate it, they should be forbidden to
preach. One cannot but be astonished at this decision, and at the
mean spirit which it displays on the part of the council. Simple and
evangelical usages had been established in Geneva: the citizens had
been called upon to take an oath in St. Peter’s church to a confession
of faith which in its spirit is entirely in agreement with those
practices; and now, in a matter which but little concerns it, in order
to gratify the lords of Berne, whom it could easily resist when it
chose to do so, the council determined to compel the ministers to
observe a ceremony essentially Judaic,[609] even at the risk of seeing
worship suspended and the Church overthrown. This looks very much like
a pretext, good or bad, which they laid hold of for the purpose of
getting rid of the reformers. The chief-usher went in the afternoon
to the pastors to communicate the decree to them. He did not find
Farel, but Calvin, learning from the officer that the civil magistrate,
without waiting for the resolution of the synod of Zurich, was himself
deciding this ecclesiastical question, just as if it were an affair of
military orders to give to an officer, refused to accept the order.
Thereupon the chief-usher, in the name of the council, prohibited his
preaching.[610]
What to do? This was the question which Calvin put to himself. He
longed for unity and peace in Geneva. He appealed afterwards to the
Genevese themselves. ‘We take God to witness,’ said he, ‘and your own
consciences, in the light of his countenance, that while we have been
among you all our exertions have been directed towards preserving you
in happy union and pleasing concord. But those who had a mind to form
a party by themselves have separated from us, and have introduced
division in your Church and in your city.’[611] Lambert’s exclamation,
when he spoke aloud of _traitors_ and _false witnesses_, is sufficient
to show us what was the state of Geneva at that time. Concord was
nothing more than a lovely dream. The most violent passions were called
into play. One would have said that God was giving up the inhabitants
of the city to the unruly motions of their own hearts; and that is the
most terrible chastisement which he ever employs in the punishment of
men. Not, indeed, that these motions showed themselves violent alike in
all. The lower classes were agitated, like their lake when the north
wind, blowing impetuously, lifts up the waves and dashes them furiously
on the rocks, the walls, and the banks. But among other classes
appearances were better kept up. Nevertheless, if any reason were still
left, it was too often only passion that made use of it for its own
ends.
[Sidenote: CONFUSION.]
The confusion that prevailed in Geneva at this period is attested
by contemporaries. ‘Popery had indeed been forsworn,’ says Theodore
Beza,[612] ‘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.
Some of the families which stood in the highest rank still kept alive
those old enmities which grew up at the period of the wars with
Savoy.’[613] ‘The mischief had gone to such a length that the city,
owing to the factious temper of some of the citizens, was divided into
various parties.’[614] ‘Nothing was to be heard,’ says Michel Rozet,
‘but informations (_dénonces_) and quarrels between the former and
the present lords (the former and the new councils), some being the
ringleaders, 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.’[615]
‘There was nothing but confusion.’[616]
Neither the mild admonitions which were at first tried, nor the more
rigorous reprimands to which recourse was afterwards had, produced any
effect on the disturbers of the peace, and they failed to put an end to
their disorderly proceedings.[617]
‘I have lived here,’ says Calvin himself, when speaking of this period,
‘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 astound a poor scholar, timid as I am,
and as I confess I always was.’[618]
Such was the melancholy condition of Geneva according to men who,
on questions of fact and of public fact, are the most respectable
authorities that history can produce. She has but few witnesses endowed
with the moral courage of Michel Rozet, Theodore Beza, and Calvin.[619]
[Sidenote: PERPLEXITY OF THE REFORMERS.]
The reformers were in great perplexity. The synod of Lausanne, at
which the Bernese had opposed the hearing of the representatives of
the Genevese Church, could not bind the latter. Their resistance to
the introduction of new usages, which was ordered by the council
without awaiting the decision of the synod of Zurich, was legitimate.
If matters of that kind are left to the decision of the civil power,
the natural order of things is inverted, the autonomy of the Church is
disowned; and who knows whether, in a turbulent democracy, religion
may not fall into the hands of an excited people who will, according
to the saying of a celebrated but scoffing writer, take it up ‘to play
at ball with it, and make it bound upwards as readily with the foot
as with the fist.’[620] However, Calvin could not help asking himself
whether the actual question, the acceptance of unleavened bread which
the Jews used to eat at the time of the Passover, was of a sufficiently
weighty kind to put an end to his ministry at Geneva. He did not
think it was. ‘If we have at heart,’ he said, ‘union and peace, let
us seek after a unity of minds in doctrine, rather than insist in a
too scrupulous manner on a conformity of the most exact kind to this
or that ceremony. There are some points on which the Lord leaves us
freedom, in order that our edification may be the greater. Not to be
careful about this edification, and to seek instead of it a slavish
conformity, is unworthy of a Christian.’[621] Such were Calvin’s views
on the question about leavened or unleavened bread.
But the question was about a quite different matter. The reformer had
before him a town in agitation and division, its parties, quarrels,
hatreds, scoffings, cries, disorders, and scandals. Is this the temple
in which the festival of peace is to be celebrated? ‘No,’ said he,
‘the aspect of the Church is not at present such as the legitimate
administration of our office requires.[622] Whatever people may say,
we do not believe that our ministry ought to be confined within such
narrow limits that when once we have delivered our sermon we have
nothing more to do except to rest as if we had accomplished our task.
It is more than that; it is that we must with greater vigilance take
care of those whose blood will be demanded at our hands if they should
perish through our negligence. This solicitude fills us with distress
of mind at all times, but when we have to distribute the Lord’s supper,
then it fiercely consumes and cruelly torments us.[623] While the faith
of many of those who wish to take part in it is in our opinion doubtful
and even open to suspicion, we see them all rushing headlong and
pell-mell to the sacred table. And one would say that they are eating
greedily the wrath of God rather than partaking of the sacrament of
life.’[624] Calvin, as these words show, had still before his eyes that
riotous communion of January, previous to which the council had decreed
‘that the supper _should not be refused to anyone_.’ He recollected the
disposition, the look, the deportment, with which many had taken part
in it; he still felt the heaviness of heart which he had experienced
when giving the bread of life to such men. Now all had grown worse. The
evil which had then shown itself, bursting the few chains which kept it
down, now broke forth with violence. The population was excited, angry,
rebellious. It was no longer merely the profligacy of some individuals;
there was general perplexity, disturbance, and confusion. The agitation
was not confined to the coarser minds; some of the most cultivated were
going beyond all bounds. The saying of a celebrated writer with respect
to another city might be applied to Geneva, ‘The devil is let loose on
this town: within the memory of man so frightful a time has not been
seen.’
[Sidenote: VIOLENCE OF PARTIES.]
Was this the moment for celebrating the feast of peace? In the judgment
of every sensible man it would have been an absurdity. If a feast is
to be held on board ship, is it to be just when the whirlwind of the
tempest strikes the vessel, when the sea-waves lift themselves up, when
those on board shake and totter like a drunken man, while they go up to
the heavens and down to the abysses? Is that the time for the dance to
begin, and for the passengers gracefully to execute measured paces, to
the sound of musical instruments? Or would anyone choose for attendance
at a sweet and harmonious concert the moment when the hall is on fire?
And yet it was proposed, in the midst of burning lawless passions,
to have by force, by the decree of the magistrate, a display of holy
things which would be nothing but a profanation.
It cannot even be said, as is usually said, that the subject of
excommunication was in question here. Not to give the supper at
present did not mean that it should not be given afterwards. Calvin
had given it. But it was not the time for it. _Non erat hic locus._
The reformer acted with the wisdom of a physician who will not give
leave to impatient sick folk to take a mountain journey; he will do
so afterwards, when they have regained their strength, but not now.
Perhaps there may be individuals among them who will never scale the
rocks because they will never have the power to do so. But that has
nothing to do with those who are whole. For the physician there will
be no more lovely day than that on which, at the head of his party, he
shall be able to breathe with his friends the keen and healthful air of
the heights, which at an earlier period would have killed them. That
joy, we say again, Calvin had once tasted.
Calvin and Farel, having considered everything, took such a resolution
as circumstances demanded; they would not give the supper on the
following day, which was Easter Day. Having adopted this resolution,
they communicated it to the authorities. ‘Farel and Calvin,’ says
Rozet, ‘informed the council that they could not administer the supper
_in the midst of these divisions, gangs, and blasphemies, and with
profligacies multiplying around them_.’[625] Such was their motive
clearly expressed. But they would do more than that. They had been
prohibited from preaching. What! on this Easter Day should the doors
of the churches be closed and the pulpit be dumb! Moreover, since
they had refused to celebrate the supper, they owed to those whom God
had confided to their ministry to give them their reasons. That was
not for their harm but for their good, and they were bound to do it.
Nevertheless, to occupy the pulpit on that day in defiance of the
prohibition of the government, which was supported by the majority of
the people, would be a grave affair for these two men, both feeble
in body, the one in consequence of his labors, and the other by
constitution. ‘But,’ said Calvin one day, recalling a saying of David,
‘though _a camp, an army_, that is to say, everything which is terrible
and appalling in the world, should rise up against us, though all men
should conspire to destroy us, we have no fear of all their might, for
the power of God is far greater. We shall not be entirely free from
fear; if we were, it would rather be from stupidity than from courage.
But we shall hold before us the shield of faith, lest our hearts should
faint or fail through the terrors which beset us.’[626] A victory which
the court of Turin, with the aid of Spain and of the pope, failed to
gain over the senate and people of Geneva, these two feeble men attempt
and win. Here was one of the most beautiful triumphs of which the cause
of religious liberty engaged in a conflict with the despotism of the
state can boast. It was more than that. It was Christian heroism which
prefers the fulfilment of the will of God, with exile, to a comfortable
abode in one of the fairest countries in the world, with a conscience
sacrificed and a slavish submission to Cæsar in things pertaining to
God. It was in this character that the two principal witnesses to
Calvin’s life regarded it. ‘Thenceforth Calvin,’ says one of them, ‘as
he was of a spirit essentially heroic, stoutly and steadily resisted
the seditious, together with the aforesaid Farel.’[627]--‘Farel and
Calvin,’ says the other, ‘each endowed with a noble and heroic spirit,
openly declared that they could not celebrate in a religious manner the
Lord’s supper, among citizens who were so miserably at variance with
each other, and so opposed to all discipline in the church.’[628] The
decay of Christian principle is the only possible explanation of the
fact that some should have ventured a judgment on them, contrary to
that which was pronounced by contemporaries.