[223] This undated fragment should, we think, be referred to the
month of February 1549; that is, to the period at which Bucer,
compelled to leave Strasbourg, by the establishment of the Interim
in that town, was making preparations for his departure for
England. In one of his letters to Calvin we discover the following
passage:--"We are only hindered by the tears and sighs of the
pious--of whom there are still a great many here--from leaving this
place before we get orders. For, if the Lord will, we wish rather to
seal than to break up our ministry. You see how our affairs stand,
and how much we need the assistance of your prayers, both in our own
behalf and on that of this very unfortunate Church."--_Calv. Opera_,
b. ix. p. 233.
Sadly disappointed in the dream of his whole life--the union of
the Reformed Churches of Germany and Switzerland--forgotten by
parties who could not forgive his moderation in an age of hatred
and intolerance, Bucer carried with him into exile the respect
and affection of Calvin, who in a letter, of which we have here
only a mere fragment, addressed to him the highest consolations of
Christian philosophy.
Consolations to be found in the study of divine and everlasting
truth.
[_February 1549._]
As truth is most precious, so all men confess it to be so. And yet,
since God alone is the source of all good, you must not doubt, that
whatever truth you anywhere meet with, proceeds from him, unless
you would be doubly ungrateful to him; it is in this way you have
received the word descended from heaven. For it is sinful to treat
God's gifts with contempt; and to ascribe to man what is peculiarly
God's is a still greater impiety. Philosophy is, consequently, the
noble gift of God, and those learned men who have striven hard after
it in all ages have been incited thereto by God himself, that they
might enlighten the world in the knowledge of the truth. But there
is a wide difference between the writings of these men and those
truths which God, of his own pleasure, delivered to guilty men for
their sanctification. In the former, you may fall in with a small
particle of truth, of which you can get only a taste, sufficient to
make you feel how pleasant and sweet it is; but in the latter, you
may obtain in rich abundance that which can refresh the soul to the
full. In the one, a shadow and an image is placed before the eyes
which can only excite in you a love of the object, without admitting
you to familiar intercourse with it; in the other, the solid
substance stands before you, with which you may not only become
intimately acquainted, but may also, in some measure, handle it.
In that, the seed is in a manner choked; in this, you may possess
the fruit in its very maturity. There, in short, only a few small
sparks break forth, which so point out the path that they fail in
the middle of the journey,--or rather, which fail in indicating the
path at all,--and can only restrain the traveller from going farther
astray; but here, the Spirit of God, like a most brilliant torch, or
rather like the sun itself, shines in full splendour, not only to
guide the course of your life, even to its final goal, but also to
conduct you to a blessed immortality. Draw then from this source,
wherever you may wander, and as soon as he finds you a settled
abode, you ought to make that your place of rest....
[_Calvin's Lat. Corresp._ Opera, tom. ix. p. 50.]