Calvin The Theologian.
The production of the 'Institutes' was by no means the most
difficult or meritorious act of Calvin's life, for a man's
superiority and force of character are not manifested in the
labour of solitary thought, but in the contests of public and
practical life. Geneva was the stage on which we can best see how
Calvin comported himself as a man; but the 'Institutes of the
Christian Religion' were, and are still, the noblest monument of
the greatness of mind and originality of idea which distinguished
him in his own century. More than that, I believe this book to be
the most valuable and enduring of all his labours; for those
churches which are specially known as the reformed Churches of
France, Switzerland, Holland, Scotland, and the United States of
America, received from Calvin's Institutes the doctrine,
organization and discipline which, in spite of sharp trials,
grave mistakes, and claims that are incompatible with the
progress of liberty, have still, for more than three centuries,
been the source of all their strength and vitality.
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The preface of the book is, in itself and apart from what
follows, very remarkable and very characteristic of the man.
Calvin dedicated his work to Francis I., to the persecutor of
French reformers during one of the fiercest outbreaks of
persecution, and at a time when he himself had been compelled to
leave his country in order to live in security, and speak with
freedom. 'And do not think,' he says to the king, 'that I
endeavour here to plead my own individual defence, in order to
obtain permission to return to the land of my birth; for,
although I have such an affection for it as it is in human nature
to feel, yet, under existing circumstances, I do not suffer any
great grief at being absent from it. But I plead the cause of all
the faithful, nay the cause of Christ, which is at the present
time so completely rent and trampled under foot throughout your
kingdom that it seems to be in a very desperate case. And all
this has come to pass more through the tyranny of certain
Pharisees than by your desire.'
Calvin was the boldest, and at the same time the least
revolutionary among the reformers of the sixteenth century; he
was devoid of fear, but he had great deference and consideration
for authority, even whilst he was openly opposing it. It appears
that the original idea of his great work occurred to him in 1534,
whilst he was at Angoulême, on a visit to the canon Louis du
Tillet. 'But nothing was farther from my thoughts, Sire,' he says
in the preface, 'than to write things which should be laid before
your Majesty; my intention was only to teach certain rudiments,
so that those who were moved by some good impulse from God might
be instructed in true piety. And chiefly, by this my labour, I
wished to serve our people of France, of whom I saw many
hungering and thirsting for Jesus Christ, but very few who had
any true knowledge of him.'
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The idea of the book was therefore, at first, exclusively
religious, and it was destined for the use of the followers of
the French reformers. But when Calvin was about to publish it, he
again becomes prudent and politic; he addresses his book to the
King of France, invokes the authority of the persecutor, and
endeavours to convince his reason. He shows himself to be a
respectful and faithful subject at the same time that he is an
independent Christian and a reformer.
The language and conduct of Calvin were certainly not owing to
any uncertainty in his convictions, or any feeling of timidity in
the presence of royalty; in this preface he often forgets or puts
aside the very prudence and policy which induced him to address
the king. He places Francis I. in a very difficult position, and
hopelessly offends him by the brutal violence and insulting
familiarity with which, whilst addressing the king, he speaks of
the Catholic Church and of its dignitaries; sometimes he
encourages, sometimes threatens the king himself; he undertakes
to prove that the reformers are not insurgents, that they do not
meditate any plot against the crown or threaten any danger to the
state; he goes so far as to promise that, even if the king
refuses to do them justice, and if he continues to allow them
'still to be cruelly persecuted by imprisonment, scourging,
torture, confiscation, and the stake, yet in our patience we
shall possess our souls, and shall wait for the mighty hand of
the Lord.' But at the same time Calvin predicts that the Divine
wrath will overtake the king if he persists in persecuting the
reformers: 'For he is a true king who, in the government of his
kingdom, recognises that he is indeed the minister of God; and,
on the contrary, he who does not reign to the end that he may set
forth and show the glory of God is not a king but a brigand.
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They are deceived who expect long prosperity in a kingdom which
is not ruled by the sceptre of God; that is to say, by his Holy
Word.' From page to page we see this alternation between
religious zeal and policy; the author is aiming at a revolution,
but all the time we see in the reformer the man who respects law
and order.
The question whether the 'Institutes of the Christian Religion'
was written first in French or in Latin has been often discussed
and is not yet decided. The preface from which I have quoted the
preceding passages is in French, and bears date Basle, 'the first
day of August, 1535.' I have it now before me in a copy of the
French edition which was published at Geneva in 1562; my copy
formerly belonged to Sully, and the margin is full of notes in
his own handwriting. It is said that no French edition of the
work itself bearing date 1535 can now be discovered; the earliest
edition known is that which was published at Basle in 1536, in
Calvin's own name, and of which both the body of the work and the
preface are in Latin. There was no French edition with date and
the author's name until 1540. I do not intend at this time to
plunge into the controversy that has been excited by the
chronological difficulty which envelopes the history of this
book; I have studied it carefully, and am inclined to think, with
many of Calvin's latest and most learned historians, that the
'Institutes of the Christian Religion' was written originally in
French, and published at Basle in 1535, without the author's
name, and that it was written first of all and specially for the
French nation, and was intended to remove from the mind of
Francis I. and the general public, the impressions produced by
the recent excesses of the Anabaptists, which their enemies laid
to the charge of the reformers also.
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It is certain that the dedication to Francis I. was written and
published first of all in French, and on the first of August,
1535: these facts are beyond dispute. How was it that a preface
written in French, and dated 1535, was put at the head of a book
written in Latin, and not published until 1536? The book itself,
in this first edition, was probably nothing more than the rather
hasty and incomplete anonymous work of a young man as yet little
known, who had just left France, and was still much more French
than, as he became later, European. It was a first work, a sketch
rather than such a treatise as the title would lead the reader to
expect. Calvin himself points this out in the preface to his
'Commentaries on the Psalms,' in which he gives many important
details connected with his own life and works. That which seems
to me the most probable solution of the question is still beset
with many difficulties, and I will not linger to discuss them. Be
this as it may, from 1536 to 1559 Calvin published eight editions
of his 'Christian Institutes,' and they were successively revised
and enlarged to such a degree as ultimately to form a work which
differs from the first known edition both in extent and form,
although it is identical in spirit and in all essential points.
The edition of 1559 is the last which Calvin prepared for the
press, and it has therefore served as the basis for all other
editions and for the numerous translations which were made at a
later period.
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It is undoubtedly the true work of Calvin, and contains his
latest injunctions respecting the doctrines of the reformed
Church, the rules for its internal government and its relation to
the state, its position in the commonwealth as well as its faith
and Christian discipline.
In order thoroughly to understand the fundamental idea and true
aim of Calvin's book we must transport ourselves to the precise
period when he first originated and wrote it. Luther, born in
1483, twenty-six years before Calvin, had accomplished, between
the years 1517 and 1532, his work of struggle and rupture with
the Church of Rome; the Confession of Augsburg had been
published; [Footnote 60] the Protestant princes had entered into
the Smalcaldic league; [Footnote 61] the religious peace of
Nuremberg had been concluded and ratified by the Diet of
Ratisbon; [Footnote 62 ] in fact, when Calvin left France and
took refuge at Basle in 1534, the German Reformation was
established in central and northern Europe. But the new work was
not so far advanced in western Europe, especially in France and
the neighbouring countries speaking the French language. In them
the war against the Church of Rome had also been eagerly
commenced, the demolition of the ancient edifice had been pursued
with ardour, but the work was hindered and opposed by the people,
and the construction of a new Church had not even been commenced.
The reformed Church appeared here and there, but without any bond
of unity or organization, and even in its cradle a prey to
uncertainty, confusion, and anarchy.
[Footnote 60: In 1530.]
[Footnote 61: In 1530.]
[Footnote 62: In 1532.]
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Calvin was so strongly impressed by this fact that it became an
object of constant anxiety to him; his intellect was so clear and
strong that he could not fail to understand the full extent of
the evil which was implied in the wavering, divided, and
scattered state of the reformation in France, and he set to work
to remedy it. His first act was to produce his 'Institutes of the
Christian Religion,' and by so doing he took the most effectual
means of creating a religious and social organization for the
reformation which was at that time springing up, in and around
France.
It is by its doctrines and its institutions, by its faith and its
discipline, that a religious society is founded and maintained.
The first great work of Calvin was devoted to proclaiming the
grounds of the reformed faith, its rules of church government,
organization, and discipline, and its rights and duties in
connexion with the state. He was occupied during his whole life
either in putting into practice the principles which he had
imposed upon the Church, or in inducing his followers to carry
them out.
As to that which concerns faith, his idea may be traced
throughout the whole of the 'Institutes.' He does not put forth
new doctrines and purely philosophical notions when he calls upon
his contemporaries to join the cause of religious reform. He does
not desire to innovate, but to restore, and he opposes the
authority of Jesus Christ and the Gospel to that of the Church of
Rome and tradition. His own position in this great enterprise was
full of difficulty; this was the time of Rabelais, Erasmus, and
Montaigne on the one hand, and of the popes Julius II., Leo X.,
Cardinal Cajetan, and the Dominican Tetzel on the other.
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In the presence of two opposing parties, both hostile to him, of
unbelieving or sceptical freethinkers and of blind adherents of
the Papacy, Calvin lived and moved. He had, at the same time, to
protest against intellectual licence and ecclesiastical
infallibility. He faces both, however, with his opinion clearly
defined, his side taken once for all, and his position maintained
with all his unbending strength. He has the most entire and
ardent belief in the Divine revelation contained in the Bible.
For him the Christian religion, as contained in the Old and New
Testaments, is a fact at the same time supernatural and
historical, an authentic and potent reality, the starting-point
of all his thoughts and the law of his whole life. Three of the
first chapters of his book bear the following titles:--
'In order to draw near to God the Creator we have need of the
Holy Scriptures for our guide and teacher.'
'Human reason furnishes proofs which are quite strong enough to
remove all doubts concerning the truth of the Scriptures.'
'The authority of the Scriptures must be sanctioned by the
testimony of the Holy Spirit, in order that we may fully believe
it; and it is an impious fiction to say that this authority is
derived from the judgment of the Church.' [Footnote 63]
[Footnote 63: Calvin, _Institution de la Religion
chrétienne_, vol. i. chaps, vi. viii. and ix. edition of
1559.]
In this circle the mind of Calvin moves. His book is only the
development and commentary of the great Christian truths, facts,
dogmas, and precepts with which the Holy Scriptures furnish him.
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