Sorbonne were vehemently opposed to the "royal lecturers" who
represented the Humanism favoured by Margaret, the sister of Francis,
and Queen of Navarre. In their wrath they had dared to attack Margaret's
famous book, _Miroir de l'âme pécheresse_, and had in consequence
displeased the Court. Nicolas Cop, the friend of Calvin, professor in
the College of Sainte Barbe, was Rector of the University (1533). He
assembled the four faculties, and the faculty of medicine disowned the
proceedings of the theologians. It was the custom for the Rector to
deliver an address before the University yearly during his term of
office, and Cop asked his friend Calvin to compose the oration.[107]
Calvin made use of the occasion to write on "Christian Philosophy,"
taking for his motto, "_Blessed are the poor in spirit_" (Matt. v.
3). The discourse was an eloquent defence of Evangelical truth, in which
the author borrowed from Erasmus and from Luther, besides adding
characteristic ideas of his own. The wrath of the Sorbonne may be
imagined. Two monks were employed to accuse the author of heresy before
_Parlement_, which responded willingly. It called the attention of the
King to papal Bulls against the Lutheran heresy. Meanwhile people
discovered that Calvin was the real author, and he had to flee from
Paris. After wanderings throughout France he found refuge in Basel
(1535).
It was there that he finished his _Christianæ Religionis Institutio_,
which had for its preface the celebrated letter addressed to Francis I.
King of France. The book was the strongest weapon Protestantism had yet
forged against the Papacy, and the letter "a bold proclamation, solemnly
made by a young man of six-and-twenty, who, more or less unconsciously,
assumed the command of Protestantism against its enemies, calumniators,
and persecutors." News had reached Basel that Francis, who was seeking
the alliance of the German Lutheran Princes, and was posing as protector
of the German Protestants, had resolved to purge his kingdom of the
so-called heresy, and was persecuting his Protestant subjects. This
double-dealing gave vigour to Calvin's pen. He says in his preface that
he wrote the book with two distinct purposes. He meant it to prepare and
qualify students of theology for reading the divine Word, that they may
have an easy introduction to it, and be able to proceed in it without
obstruction. He also meant it to be a vindication of the teaching of the
Reformers against the calumnies of their enemies, who had urged the King
of France to persecute them and drive them from France. His dedication
was: _To His Most Gracious Majesty, Francis, King of France and his
sovereign, John Calvin wisheth peace and salvation in Christ._ Among
other things he said:
"I exhibit my confession to you that you may know the nature of
that doctrine which is the object of such unbounded rage to those
madmen who are now disturbing your kingdom with fire and sword. For
I shall not be afraid to acknowledge that this treatise contains a
summary of that very doctrine which, according to their clamours,
deserves to be punished with imprisonment, banishment,
proscription, and flames, and to be exterminated from the face of
the earth."
He meant to state in calm precise fashion what Protestants believed; and
he made the statement in such a way as to challenge comparison between
those beliefs and the teaching of the mediæval Church. He took the
_Apostles' Creed_, the venerable symbol of Western Christendom, and
proceeded to show that when tested by this standard the Protestants were
truer Catholics than the Romanists. He took this _Apostles' Creed_,
which had been recited or sung in the public worship of the Church of
the West from the earliest times, which differed from other creeds in
this, that it owed its authority to no Council, but sprang directly from
the heart of the Church, and he made it the basis of his _Institutio_.
For the _Institutio_ is an expansion and exposition of the _Apostles'
Creed_, and of the four sentences which it explains. Its basis is: _I
believe in God the Father; and in His Son Jesus Christ; and in the Holy
Ghost; and in the Holy Catholic Church._ The _Institutio_ is divided
into four parts, each part expounding one of these fundamental
sentences. The first part describes God, the Creator, or, as the Creed
says: "God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth"; the second,
God the Son, the Redeemer and His Redemption; the third, God the Holy
Ghost and His Means of Grace; the fourth, the Holy Catholic Church, its
nature and marks.
This division and arrangement, based on the _Apostles' Creed_, means
that Calvin did not think he was expounding a new theology or had joined
a new Church. The theology of the Reformation was the old teaching of
the Church of Christ, and the doctrinal beliefs of the Reformers were
those views of truth which were founded on the Word of God, and which
had been known, or at least felt, by pious people all down the
generations from the earliest centuries. He and his fellow Reformers
believed and taught the old theology of the earliest creeds, made plain
and freed from the superstitions which mediæval theologians had borrowed
from pagan philosophy and practices.
The first edition of the _Institutio_ was published in March 1536, in
Latin. It was shorter and in many ways inferior to the carefully revised
editions of 1539 and 1559. In the later editions the arrangement of
topics was somewhat altered; but the fundamental doctrine remains
unchanged; the author was not a man to publish a treatise on theology
without carefully weighing all that had to be said. In 1541, Calvin
printed a French edition, which he had translated himself "for the
benefit of his countrymen."
After finishing his _Institutio_ (the MS. was completed in August 1535,
and the printing in March 1536), Calvin, under the assumed name of
Charles d'Espeville, set forth on a short visit to Italy with a
companion, Louis du Tillet, who called himself Louis de Haulmont. He
intended to visit Renée, Duchess of Ferrara, daughter of Louis XII. of
France, known for her piety and her inclination to the Reformed faith.
He also wished to see something of Italy. After a short sojourn he was
returning to Strassburg, with the intention of settling there and
devoting himself to a life of quiet study, when he was accidentally
compelled to visit Geneva, and his whole plan of life was changed. The
story can best be told in his own words. He says in the preface to his
_Commentary on the Psalms_:
"As the most direct route to Strassburg, to which I then intended
to retire, was blocked by the wars, I had resolved to pass quickly
by Geneva, without staying longer than a single night in that
city.... A person (Louis du Tillet) who has now returned to the
Papists discovered me and made me known to others. Upon this Farel,
who burned with an extraordinary zeal to advance the Gospel,
immediately strained every nerve to detain me. After having learnt
that my heart was set upon devoting myself to private studies, for
which I wished to keep myself free from other pursuits, and finding
that he gained nothing by entreaties, he proceeded to utter an
imprecation, that God would curse my retirement and the
tranquillity of the studies which I sought, if I should withdraw
and refuse assistance when the necessity was so urgent. By this
imprecation I was so stricken with terror that I desisted from the
journey which I had undertaken."
§ 5. _Calvin with Farel in Geneva._
Calvin was twenty-seven years of age and Farel twenty years older when
they began to work together in Geneva; and, notwithstanding the
disparity in age and utter dissimilarity of character, the two men
became strongly attached to each other. "We had one heart and one soul,"
Calvin says. Farel introduced him to the leading citizens, who were not
much impressed by the reserved, frail young foreigner whose services
their pastor was so anxious to secure. They did not even ask his name.
The minute of the Council (Sept. 5th, 1536), giving him employment and
promising him support, runs: "Master William Farel stated the need for
the lecture begun by _this Frenchman_ in St. Peter's."[108] Calvin had
declined the pastorate; but he had agreed to act as "professor in sacred
learning to the Church in Geneva (_Sacrarum literarum in ecclesia
Genevensi professor_)." His power was of that quiet kind that is
scarcely felt till it has gripped and holds.
He began his work by giving lectures daily in St. Peter's on the
Epistles of St. Paul. They were soon felt to be both powerful and
attractive. Calvin soon made a strong impression on the people of the
city. An occasion arose which revealed him in a way that his friends
had never before known. Bern had conquered the greater part of the Pays
de Vaud in the late war. Its Council was determined to instruct the
people of its newly acquired territory in Evangelical principles by
means of a public Disputation, to be held at Lausanne during the first
week of October.[109] The three hundred and thirty-seven priests of the
newly conquered lands, the inmates of the thirteen abbeys and convents,
of the twenty-five priories, of the two chapters of canons, were invited
to come to Lausanne to refute if they could the ten Evangelical _Theses_
arranged by Farel and Viret.[110] The Council of Bern pledged itself
that there would be the utmost freedom of debate, not only for its own
subjects, but "for all comers, to whatever land they belonged." Farel
insisted on this freedom in his own trenchant way: "You may speak here
as boldly as you please; _our_ arguments are neither faggot, fire, nor
sword, prison nor torture; public executioners are not our doctors of
divinity.... Truth is strong enough to outweigh falsehood; if you have
it, bring it forward." The Romanists were by no means eager to accept
the challenge. Out of the three hundred and thirty-seven priests
invited, only one hundred and seventy-four appeared, and of these only
four attempted to take part. Two who had promised to discuss did not
show themselves. Only ten of the forty religious houses sent
representatives, and only one of them ventured to meet the Evangelicals
in argument.[111] As at Bern in 1528, as at Geneva in May 1535, so here
at Lausanne in October 1536, the Romanists showed themselves unable to
meet their opponents, and the policy of Bern in insisting on public
Disputations was abundantly justified.
Farel and Viret were the Protestant champions. Farel preached the
opening sermon in the cathedral on Oct. 1st, and closed the conference
by another sermon on Oct. 8th. The discussion began on the Monday, when
the huge cathedral was thronged by the inhabitants of the city and of
the surrounding villages. In the middle of the church a space was
reserved for the disputants. There sat the four secretaries, the two
presidents, and five commissioners representing _les Princes Chretiens
Messieurs de Berne_, distinguished by their black doublets and
shoulder-knots faced with red, and by their broad-brimmed hats
ornamented with great bunches of feathers,--hats kept stiffly on heads
as befitting the representatives of such potent lords.
Calvin had not meant to speak; Farel and Viret were the orators; he was
only there in attendance. But on the Thursday, when the question of the
Real Presence was discussed, one of the Romanists read a carefully
prepared paper, in the course of which he said that the Protestants
despised and neglected the ancient Fathers, fearing their authority,
which was against their views. Then Calvin rose. He began with the
sarcastic remark that the people who reverenced the Fathers might spend
some little time in turning over their pages before they spoke about
them. He quoted from one Father after another,--"Cyprian, discussing the
subject now under review in the third epistle of his second book of
Epistles, says ... Tertullian, refuting the error of Marcion, says ...
The author of some imperfect commentaries on St. Matthew, which some
have attributed to St. John Chrysostom, in the 11th homily about the
middle, says ... St. Augustine, in his 23rd Epistle, near the end, says
... Augustine, in one of his homilies on St. John's Gospel, the 8th or
the 9th, I am not sure at this moment which, says ...";[112] and so on.
He knew the ancient Fathers as no one else in the century. He had not
taken their opinions second-hand from Peter of Lombardy's _Sententiæ_
as did most of the Schoolmen and contemporary Romanist theologians. It
was the first time that he displayed, almost accidentally, his
marvellous patristic knowledge,--a knowledge for which Melanchthon could
never sufficiently admire him.
But in Geneva the need of the hour was organisation and familiar
instruction, and Calvin set himself to work at once. He has told us how
he felt. "When I came first to this church," he said, "there was almost
nothing. Sermons were preached;[113] the idols had been sought out and
burned, but there was no other reformation; everything was in
disorder."[114] In the second week of January he had prepared a draft of
the reforms he wished introduced. It was presented to the _Small
Council_ by Farel; the members had considered it, and were able to
transmit it with their opinion to the _Council of the Two Hundred_ on
January 15th, 1537. It forms the basis of all Calvin's ecclesiastical
work in Geneva, and deserves study.
The memorandum treats of four things, and four only--the Holy Supper of
our Lord (_la Saincte Cène de Nostre Seigneur_), singing in public
worship, the religious instruction of children, and marriage.
In every rightly ordered church, it is said, the Holy Supper ought to be
celebrated frequently, and well attended. It ought to be dispensed every
Lord's Day at least;[115] such was the practice in the Apostolic Church,
and ought to be ours; the celebration is a great comfort to all
believers, for in it they are made partakers of the Body and Blood of
Jesus, of His death, of His life, of His Spirit, and of all His
benefits. But the present weakness of the people makes it undesirable to
introduce so sweeping a change, and therefore it is proposed that the
Holy Supper be celebrated once each month "in one of the three places
where sermons are now delivered--in the churches of St. Peter, St.
Gervais, and de Rive." The celebration, however, ought to be for the
whole Church of Geneva, and not simply for those living in the quarters
of the town where these churches are. Thus every one will have the
opportunity of monthly communion. But if unworthy partakers approach the
Table of the Lord, the Holy Supper will be soiled and contaminated. To
prevent this, the Lord has placed the _discipline de l'excommunication_
within His Church in order to maintain its purity, and this ought to be
used. Perhaps the best way of exercising it is to appoint men of known
worth, dwelling in different quarters of the town, who ought to be
trusted to watch and report to the ministers all in their neighbourhood
who despise Christ Jesus by living in open sin. The ministers ought to
warn all such persons not to come to the Holy Supper, and the discipline
of excommunication only begins when such warnings are unheeded.
Congregational singing of Psalms ought to be part of the public worship
of the Church of Christ; for Psalms sung in this way are really public
prayers, and when they are sung hearts are moved and worshippers are
incited to form similar prayers for themselves, and to render to God the
like praises with the same loving loyalty. But as all this is unusual,
and the people need to be trained, it may be well to select children, to
teach them to sing in a clear and distinct fashion in the congregation,
and if the people listen with all attention and follow "with the heart
what is sung by the mouth," they will, "little by little, become
accustomed to sing together" as a congregation.[116]
It is most important for the due preservation of purity of doctrine that
children from their youth should be instructed how to give a reason for
their faith, and therefore some simple catechism or confession of faith
ought to be prepared and taught to the children. At "certain seasons of
the year" the children ought to be brought before the pastors, who
should examine them and expound the teachings of the catechism.
The ordinance of marriage has been disfigured by the evil and
unscriptural laws of the Papacy, and it were well that the whole matter
be carefully thought over and some simple rules laid down agreeable to
the Word of God.
This memorandum, for it is scarcely more, was dignified with the name of
the _Articles_ (_Articuli de regimine ecclesiæ_). It was generally
approved by the _Small Council_ and the _Council of Two Hundred_, who
made, besides, the definite regulations that the Holy Supper should be
celebrated four times in the year, and that announcements of marriages
should be made for three successive Sundays before celebration. But it
is very doubtful whether the Council went beyond this general approval,
or that they gave definite and deliberate consent to Calvin's proposals
about "the discipline of excommunication."
These _Articles_ were superseded by the famous _Ordonnances
ecclésiastiques de l'Église de Genève_, adopted on Nov. 20th, 1541; but
as they are the first instance in which Calvin publicly presented his
special ideas about ecclesiastical government, it may be well to
describe what these were. To understand them aright, to see the _new_
thing which Calvin tried to introduce into the Church life of the
sixteenth century, it is necessary to distinguish between two things
which it must be confessed were practically entangled with each other
in these days--the attempt to regulate the private life by laws
municipal or national, and the endeavour to preserve the solemnity and
purity of the celebration of the Holy Supper.
When historians, ecclesiastical or other, charge Calvin with attempting
the former, they forget that there was no need for him to do so. Geneva,
like every other mediæval town, had its laws which interfered with
private life at every turn, and that in a way which to our modern minds
seems the grossest tyranny, but which was then a commonplace of city
life. Every mediæval town had its laws against extravagance in dress, in
eating and in drinking, against cursing and swearing, against gaming,
dances, and masquerades. They prescribed the number of guests to be
invited to weddings, and dinners, and dances; when the pipers were to
play, when they were to leave off, and what they were to be paid. It
must be confessed that when one turns over the pages of town chronicles,
or reads such a book as Baader's _Nürnberger Polizeiordnung_, the
thought cannot help arising that the Civic Fathers, like some modern
law-makers, were content to place stringent regulations on the
statute-book, and then, exhausted by their moral endeavour, had no
energy left to put them into practice. But every now and then a
righteous fit seized them, and maid-servants were summoned before the
Council for wearing silk aprons, or fathers for giving too luxurious
wedding feasts, or citizens for working on a Church festival, or a
mother, for adorning her daughter too gaily for her marriage. The
citizens of every mediæval town lived under a municipal discipline which
we would pronounce to be vexatious and despotic. Every instance quoted
by modern historians to prove, as they think, Calvin's despotic
interference with the details of private life, can be paralleled by
references to the police-books of mediæval towns in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. To make them ground of accusation against Calvin is
simply to plead ignorance of the whole municipal police of the later
Middle Ages. To say that Calvin acquiesced in or approved of such
legislation is simply to show that he belonged to the sixteenth century.
When towns adopted the Reformation, the spirit of civic legislation did
not change, but some old regulations were allowed to lapse, and fresh
ones suggested by the new ideas took their place. There was nothing
novel in the law which Bern made for the Pays de Vaud in 1536 (Dec.
24th), prohibiting dancing with the exception of "trois danses honêtes"
at weddings; but it was a new regulation which prescribed that parents
must bring their daughters to the marriage altar "le chiefz couvert." It
was not a new thing when Basel in 1530 appointed three honourable men
(one from the Council and two from the commonalty) to watch over the
morals of the inhabitants of each parish, and report to the Council. It
was new, but quite in the line of mediæval civic legislation, when Bern
forbade scandalous persons from approaching the Lord's Table (1532).
Calvin's thought moved on another plane. He was distinguished among the
Reformers for his zeal to restore again the conditions which had ruled
in the Church of the first three centuries. This had been a favourite
idea with Lefèvre,[117] who had taught it to Farel, Gerard Roussel, and
the other members of the "group of Meaux." Calvin may have received it
from Roussel; but there is no need to suppose that it did not come to
him quite independently. He had studied the Fathers of the first three
centuries more diligently than any of his contemporaries. He recognised
as none of them did that the Holy Supper of the Lord was the centre of
the religious life of the Church, and the apex and crown of her worship.
He saw how careful the Church of the first three centuries had been to
protect the sacredness of the simple yet profound rite; and that it had
done so by preventing the approach of all unworthy communicants.
Discipline was the nerve of the early Church, and excommunication was
the nerve of discipline; and Calvin wished to introduce both. Moreover,
he knew that in the early Church it belonged to the membership and to
the ministry to exercise discipline and to pronounce excommunication. He
desired to reintroduce all these distinctive features of the Church of
the first three centuries--weekly communion, discipline and
excommunication exercised by the pastorate and the members. He
recognised that when the people had been accustomed to come to the
Lord's Table only once or twice in the year, it was impossible to
introduce weekly communion all at once. But he insisted that the
warnings of St. Paul about unworthy communicants were so weighty that
notorious sinners ought to be prevented from approaching the Holy
Supper, and that the obstinately impenitent should be excommunicated.
This and this alone was the distinctive thing about Calvin's proposals;
this was the new conception which he introduced.
Calvin's mistake was that, while he believed that the membership and the
pastorate should exercise discipline and excommunication, he also
insisted that the secular power should enforce the censures of the
Church. His ideas worked well in the French Church, a Church "under the
cross," and in the same position as the Church of the early centuries.
But the conception that the secular power ought to support with civil
pains and penalties the disciplinary decisions of ecclesiastical Courts,
must have produced a tyranny not unlike what had existed in the mediæval
Church. Calvin's ideas, however, were never accepted save nominally in
any of the Swiss Churches--not even in Geneva. The very thought of
excommunication in the hands of the Church was eminently distasteful to
the Protestants of the sixteenth century; they had suffered too much
from it as exercised by the Roman Catholic Church. Nor did it agree with
the conceptions which the magistrates of the Swiss republics had of
their own dignity, that they should be the servants of the ministry to
carry out their sentences.[118] The leading Reformers in German
Switzerland almost universally held that excommunication, if it ever
ought to be practised, should be in the hands of the civil authorities.
Zwingli did not think that the Church should exercise the right of
excommunication. He declared that the example of the first three
centuries was not to be followed, because in these days the "Church
could have no assistance from the Emperors, who were pagans"; whereas in
Zurich there was a Christian magistracy, who could relieve the Church of
what must be in any case a disagreeable duty. His successor, Bullinger,
the principal adviser of the divines of the English Reformation, went
further. Writing to Leo Jud (1532), he declares that excommunication
ought not to belong to the Church, and that he doubts whether it should
be exercised even by the secular authorities; and in a letter to a
Romance pastor (Nov. 24th, 1543) he expounds his views about
excommunication, and states how he differs from his _optimos fratres
Gallos_ (Viret, Farel, and Calvin).[119] The German Swiss Reformers took
the one side, and the French Swiss Reformers took the other; and the
latter were all men who had learned to reverence the usages of the
Church of the first three centuries, and desired to see its methods of
ecclesiastical discipline restored.
The people invariably sided with the German-speaking Reformers.[120]
Calvin managed, with great difficulty, to introduce excommunication into
Geneva after his return from exile, but not in a way conformable to his
ideas. Farel could not get it introduced into Neuchâtel. He believed,
founding on the New Testament,[121] that the membership of each parish
had the right to exclude from the Holy Supper sinners who had resisted
all admonitions. But the Council and community of Neuchâtel would not
tolerate the "practice and usage of Excommunication," and did not allow
it to appear in their ecclesiastical ordinances of 1542 or of 1553.
Oecolampadius induced the Council of Basel to permit excommunication,
and to inscribe the names of the excommunicate on placards fixed on the
doors of the churches. Zwingli remonstrated vigorously, and the practice
was abandoned. Bern was willing to warn open sinners from approaching
the Lord's Table, but would not hear of excommunication, and declared
roundly that "ministers, who were sinners themselves, being of flesh and
blood, should not attempt to penetrate into the individual consciences,
whose secrets were known to God alone." Viret tried to introduce a
_discipline ecclésiastique_ into the Pays de Vaud, but was unable to
induce magistrates or people to accept it. The young Protestant Churches
of Switzerland, with the very doubtful exception of Geneva after 1541,
refused to allow the introduction of the disciplinary usages of the
primitive Church. They had no objection to discipline, however searching
and vexatious, provided it was simply an application of the old
municipal legislation, to which they had for generations been
accustomed, to the higher moral requirements of religion.[122] It was
universally recognised that the standard of moral living all over
French Switzerland was very low, and that stringent measures were
required to improve it. No exception was taken to the severe reprimand
which the Council of Bern addressed to the subject Council of Lausanne
for their failure to correct the evil habits of the people of that old
episcopal town;[123] but such discipline had to be exercised in the old
mediæval way through the magistrates, and not in any new-fangled fashion
borrowed from the primitive Church. So far as Switzerland was concerned,
Calvin's entreaties to model their ecclesiastical life on what he
believed with Lefèvre to be the golden period of the Church's history,
fell on heedless ears. One must go to the French Church, and in a lesser
degree to the Church of Knox in Scotland, to see Calvin's ideas put in
practice; it is vain to look for this in Switzerland.
The _Catechism_ for children was published in 1537, and was meant,
according to the author, to give expression to a simple piety, rather
than to exhibit a profound knowledge of religious truth. But, as Calvin
himself felt later, it was too theological for children, and was
superseded by a second Catechism, published immediately after his return
to Geneva in 1541. The first Catechism was entitled _Instruction and
Confession of Faith for the use of the Church of Geneva_. It expounded
successively the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's
Prayer, and the Sacraments. The duties of the pastorate and of the
magistracy were stated in appendices.[124]
The _Confession of Faith_ had for its full title, _Confession de la Foy
laquelle tous bourgois et habitans de Genève et subjectz du pays doyvent
jurer de garder et tenir extraicte de l'Instruction dont on use en
l'Église de la dicte ville_.[125] It reproduced the contents of the
_Instruction_, and was, like it, a condensed summary of the
_Institutio_.
This Confession has often been attributed to Farel, but there can be
little doubt that it came from the pen of Calvin.[126] It was submitted
to the Council and approved by them, and they agreed that the people
should be asked to swear to maintain it, the various divisions of the
districts of the town appearing for the purpose before the secretary of
the Council. The proposal was then sent down to the Council of the Two
Hundred, where it was assented to, but not without opposition. The
minutes show that some members remained faithful to the Romanist faith.
They said that they ought not to be compelled to take an oath which was
against their conscience. Others who professed themselves Protestants
asserted that to swear to a Confession took from them their liberty.
"We do not wish to be constrained," they said, "but to live in our
liberty." But in the end it was resolved to do as the Council had
recommended. So day by day the _dizenniers_, or captains of the
divisions of the town, brought their people to the cathedral, where the
secretary stood in the pulpit to receive the oath. The magistrates set
the example, and the people were sworn in batches, raising their hands
and taking the oath. But there were malcontents who stayed away, and
there were beginnings of trouble which was to increase. Deputies from
Bern, unmindful of the fact that their city had sworn in the same way to
their creed, encouraged the dissentients by saying that no one could
take such an oath without perjuring himself; and this opinion
strengthened the opposition. But the Council of Bern disowned its
deputies,[127] and refused any countenance to the malcontents, and the
trouble passed. All Geneva was sworn to maintain the Confession.
Meanwhile the ministers of Geneva had been urging decision about the
question of discipline and excommunication; and the murmurs against them
grew stronger. The Council was believed to be too responsive to the
pleadings of the pastors, and a stormy meeting of the General Council
(Nov. 25th) revealed the smouldering discontent. On the 4th of January
(1538) the Councils of Geneva rejected entirely the proposals to
institute a discipline which would protect the profanation of the Lord's
Table, by resolving that the Holy Supper was to be refused to no person
seeking to partake. On the 3rd of February, at the annual election of
magistrates, four Syndics were chosen who were known to be the most
resolute opponents of Calvin and of Farel. The new Council did not at
first show itself hostile to the preachers: their earliest minutes are
rather deferential. But a large part of the citizens were violently
opposed to the preachers; the Syndics were their enemies: collision was
bound to come sooner or later.
It was at this stage that a proposal from Bern brought matters to a
crisis.
The city contained many inhabitants who had been somewhat unwillingly
dragged along the path of Reformation. Those who clung to the old faith
were reinforced by others who had supported the Reformation simply as a
means of freeing the city from the rule of the Prince Bishop, and who
had no sympathy with the religious movement. The city had long been
divided into two parties, and the old differences reappeared as soon as
the city declared itself Protestant. The malcontents took advantage of
everything that could assist them to stay the tide of Reformation and
hamper the work of the ministers. They patronised the Anabaptists when
they appeared in Geneva; they supported the accusation brought against
Farel and Calvin by Pierre Caroli, that they were Arians because they
refused to use the Athanasian Creed; above all, they declared that they
stood for liberty, and called themselves Libertines. When Bern
interfered, they hastened to support its ecclesiastical suggestions.
Bern had never been contented with the position in which it stood to
Geneva after its conquest of the Pays de Vaud. When the war was ended,
or rather before it was finished, and while the Bernese army of
deliverance was occupying the town, the accompanying deputies of Bern
had claimed for their city the rights over Geneva previously exercised
by the Prince Bishop and the Vidomne or representative of the Duke of
Savoy, whom their army had conquered. They claimed to be the overlords
of Geneva, as they succeeded in making themselves masters of Lausanne
and the Pays de Vaud. The people of Geneva resisted the demand. They
declared, Froment tells us, that they had not struggled and fought for
more than thirty years to assert their liberties, in order to make
themselves the vassals of their allies or of anyone in the wide
world.[128] Bern threatened to renounce alliance; but Geneva stood
firm; there was always France to appeal to for aid. In the end Bern had
to be content with much less than it had demanded.
Geneva became an independent republic, served heir to all the signorial
rights of the Prince Bishop and to all his revenues, successor also to
all the justiciary rights of the Vidomne or representative of the House
of Savoy. It gained complete sovereignty within the city; it also
retained the same sovereignty over the districts (_mandements_) of
Penney, Jussy, and Thyez which had belonged to the Prince Bishop. On the
other side, Bern received the district of Gaillard; Geneva bound itself
to make no alliance nor conclude any treaty without the consent of Bern;
and to admit the Bernese at all times into their city. The lordship over
one or two outlying districts was divided--Geneva being recognised as
sovereign, and having the revenues, and Bern keeping the right to judge
appeals, etc.
It seemed to be the policy of Bern to create a strong State by bringing
under its strict control the greater portion of Romance Switzerland. Her
subject territories, Lausanne, a large part of the Pays de Vaud, Gex,
Chablais, Orbe, etc., surrounded Geneva on almost every side. If only
Geneva were reduced to the condition of the other Prince Bishopric,
Lausanne, Bern's dream of rule would be realised. The Reformed Church
was a means of solidifying these conquests. Over all Romance territories
subject to Bern the Bernese ecclesiastical arrangements were to rule.
Her Council was invariably the last court of appeal. Her consistory was
reproduced in all these French-speaking local Churches. Her religious
usages and ceremonies spread all over this Romance Switzerland. The
Church in Geneva was independent. Might it not be brought into nearer
conformity, and might not conformity in ecclesiastical matters lead to
the political incorporation which Bern so ardently desired? The
evangelist of almost all these Romance Protestant Churches had been
Farel. Their ecclesiastical usages had grown up under his guidance. It
would conduce to harmony in the attempt to introduce uniformity with
Bern if the Church of Geneva joined. Such was the external political
situation to be kept in view in considering the causes which led to the
banishment of Calvin from Geneva.
In pursuance of its scheme of ecclesiastical conformity, the Council of
Bern summoned a Synod, representing most of the Evangelical Churches in
western Switzerland, and laid its proposals before them. No detailed
account of the proceedings has been preserved. There were probably some
dissentients, of whom Farel was most likely one, who pled that the
Romance Churches might be left to preserve their own usages. But the
general result was that Bern resolved to summon another Synod,
representing the Romance Churches, to meet at Lausanne (March 30th,
1538). They asked (March 5th) the Council of Geneva to permit the
attendance of Farel and Calvin.[129] The letter reached Geneva on March
11th, and on that day the Genevan magistrates, unsolicited by Bern and
without consulting their ministers, resolved to introduce the Bernese
ceremonies into the Genevan Church. Next day they sent the letter of
Bern to Farel and Calvin, and at the same time warned the preachers that
they would not be allowed to criticise the proceedings of the Council in
the pulpit. Neither Farel nor Calvin made any remonstrance. They
declared that they were willing to go to Lausanne, asked the Council if
they had any orders to give, and said that they were ready to obey them;
and this although a second letter (March 20th) had come from Bern saying
that if the Genevan preachers would not accept the Bern proposals they
would not be permitted to attend the Synod.
Farel and Calvin accordingly went to the Synod at Lausanne, and were
parties to the decision arrived at, which was to accept the usages of
Bern--that all baptisms should be celebrated at stone fonts placed at
the entrance of the churches; that unleavened bread should be used at
the Holy Supper; and that four religious festivals should be observed
annually, Christmas, New Year's Day, the Annunciation, and the Day of
Ascension--with the stipulation that Bern should warn its officials not
to be too hard on poor persons for working on these festival days.[130]
When the Council of Bern had got its ecclesiastical proposals duly
adopted by the representatives of the various Churches interested, its
Council wrote (April 15th) to the Council and to the ministers of Geneva
asking them to confer together and arrange that the Church of Geneva
should adopt these usages--the magistrates of Bern having evidently no
knowledge of the hasty resolution of the Genevan Council already
mentioned. The letter was discussed at a meeting of Council (April 19th,
1538), and several minutes, all relating to ecclesiastical matters, were
passed. It was needless to come to any resolution about the Bern usages;
they had been adopted already. The letter from Bern was to be shown to
Farel and Calvin, and the preachers were to be asked and were to answer,
yea or nay, would they at once introduce the Bern ceremonies? The
preachers said that the usages could not be introduced at once. The
third Genevan preacher, Elie Coraut, had spoken disrespectfully of the
Council in the city, and was forbidden to preach, upon threat of
imprisonment, until he had been examined about his words.[131] Lastly,
it was resolved that the Holy Supper should be celebrated at once
according to the Bern rites; and that if Farel and Calvin refused, the
Council was to engage other preachers who would obey their orders.[132]
Coraut, the blind preacher, preached as usual (April 20th). He was at
once arrested and imprisoned. In the afternoon, Farel and Calvin,
accompanied by several of the most eminent citizens of Geneva, appeared
before the Council to protest against Coraut's imprisonment, and to
demand his release--Farel speaking with his usual daring vehemence, and
reminding the magistrates that but for his work in the city they would
not be in the position they occupied. The request was refused, and the
Council took advantage of the presence of the preachers to ask them
whether they would at once introduce the Bern usages. They replied that
they had no objection to the ceremonies, and would be glad to use them
in worship provided they were properly adopted,[133] but not on a simple
order from the Council. Farel and Calvin were then forbidden to preach.
Next day the two pastors preached as usual--Calvin in St. Peter's and
Farel in St. Gervaise. The Council met to consider this act of
disobedience. Some were for sending the preachers to prison at once; but
it was resolved to summon the _Council of the Two Hundred_ on the morrow
(April 22nd) and the _General Council_ on the 24th. The letters of Bern
(March 5th, March 20th, April 15th) were read, and the Two Hundred
resolved that they would "live according to the ceremonies of Bern."
What then was to be done with Calvin and Farel? Were they to be sent to
the town's prison? No! Better to wait till the Council secured other
preachers (it had been trying to do so and had failed), and then dismiss
them. The General Council then met;[134] resolved to "live according to
the ceremonies of Bern," and to banish the three preachers from the
town, giving them three days to collect their effects.[135] Calvin and
Farel were sent into exile, and the magistrates made haste to seize the
furniture which had been given them when they were settled as preachers.
Calvin long remembered the threats and dangers of these April days and
nights. He was insulted in the streets. Bullies threatened to "throw him
into the Rhone." Crowds of the baser sort gathered round his house. They
sang ribald and obscene songs under his windows. They fired shots at
night, more than fifty one night, before his door--"more than enough to
astonish a poor scholar, timid as I am, and as I confess I have always
been."[136] It was the memory of these days that made him loathe the
very thought of returning to Geneva.
The two Reformers, Calvin and Farel, left the town at once, determined
to lay their case before the Council of Bern, and also before the Synod
of Swiss Churches which was about to meet at Zurich (April 28th, 1538).
The Councillors of Bern were both shocked and scandalised at the
treatment the preachers had received from the Council of Geneva, and
felt it all the more that their proposal of conformity had served as the
occasion. They wrote at once to Geneva (April 27th), begging the Council
to undo what they had done; to remember that their proposal for
uniformity had never been meant to serve as occasion for compulsion in
matters which were after all indifferent.[137] Bern might be masterful,
but it was almost always courteous. The secular authority might be the
motive force in all ecclesiastical matters, but it was to be exercised
through the machinery of the Church. The authorities of Bern had been
careful to establish an ecclesiastical Court, the Consistory, of two
pastors and three Councillors, who dealt with all ecclesiastical
details. It encouraged the meeting of Synods all over its territories.
Its proposals for uniformity had been addressed to both the pastors and
the Council of Geneva, and had spoken of mutual consultation. They had
no desire to seem even remotely responsible for the bludgeoning of the
Genevan ministers. The Council of Geneva answered with a mixture of
servility and veiled insolence[138] (April 30th). Nothing could be made
of them.
From Bern, Farel and Calvin went to Zurich, and there addressed a
memorandum to a Synod, which included representatives from Zurich, Bern,
Basel, Schaffhausen, St. Gallen, Mühlhausen, Biel (Bienne), and the two
banished ministers from Geneva. It was one of those General Assemblies
which in Calvin's eyes represented the Church Catholic, to which all
particular Churches owed deference, if not simple obedience. The Genevan
pastors presented their statement with a proud humility. They were
willing to accept the ceremonies of Bern, matters in themselves
indifferent, but which might be useful in the sense of showing the
harmony prevailing among the Reformed Churches; but they must be
received by the Church of Geneva, and not imposed upon it by the mere
fiat of the secular authority. They were quite willing to expound them
to the people of Geneva and recommend them. But if they were to return
to Geneva, they must be allowed to defend themselves against their
calumniators; and their programme for the organisation of the Church of
Geneva, which had already been accepted but had not been put in practice
(January 16th, 1537),[139] must be introduced. It consisted of the
following:--the establishment of an ecclesiastical discipline, that the
Holy Supper might not be profaned; the division of the city into
parishes, that each minister might be acquainted with his own flock; an
increase in the number of ministers for the town; regular ordination of
pastors by the laying on of hands; more frequent celebration of the Holy
Supper, according to the practice of the primitive Church.[140] They
confessed that perhaps they had been too severe; on this personal matter
they were willing to be guided.[141] They listened with humility to the
exhortations of some of the members of the Synod, who prayed them to use
more gentleness in dealing with an undisciplined people. But on the
question of principle and on the rights of the Church set over against
the State, they were firm. It was probably the first time that the
Erastians of eastern Switzerland had listened to such High Church
doctrine; but they accepted it and made it their own for the time being
at least. The Synod decided to write to the Council of Geneva and ask
them to have patience with their preachers and receive them back again;
and they asked the deputies from Bern to charge themselves with the
affair, and do their best to see Farel and Calvin reinstated in Geneva.
The deputies of Bern accepted the commission, and the Geneva pastors
went back to Bern to await the arrival of the Bern deputies from Zurich.
They waited, full of anxiety, for nearly fourteen days. Then the Bern
Council were ready to fulfil the request of the Synod.[142] Deputies
were appointed, and, accompanied by Farel and Calvin, set out for
Geneva. The two pastors waited on the frontier at Noyon or at Genthod
while the deputies of Bern went on to Geneva. They had an audience of
the Council (May 23rd), were told that the Council could not revoke what
all three Councils had voted. The Council of the Two Hundred refused to
recall the pastors. The Council General (May 26th) by a unanimous vote
repeated the sentence of exile, and forbade the three pastors (Farel,
Calvin, and Coraut) to set foot on Genevan territory.
Driven from Geneva, Calvin would fain have betaken himself to a quiet
student life; but he was too well known and too much valued to be left
in the obscurity he longed for. Strassburg claimed him to minister to
the French refugees who had settled within its protecting walls. He was
invited to attend the Protestant conference at Frankfurt; he was present
at the union conferences at Hagenau, at Worms, and at Regensburg. There
he met the more celebrated German Protestant divines, who welcomed him
as they had done no one else from Switzerland. Calvin put himself right
with them theologically by signing at once and without solicitation the
Augsburg Confession, and aided thereby the feeling of union among all
Protestants. He kindled in the breast of Melanchthon one of those
romantic friendships which the frail Frenchman, with the pallid face,
black hair, and piercing eyes, seemed to evoke so easily. Luther himself
appreciated his theology even on his jealously guarded theory of the
Sacrament of the Holy Supper.
Meanwhile things were not going well in Geneva. Outwardly, there was not
much difference. Pastors ministered in the churches of the town, and the
ordinary and ecclesiastical life went on as usual. The magistrates
enforced the _Articles_; they condemned the Anabaptists, the Papists,
all infringements of the sumptuary and disciplinary laws of the town.
They compelled every householder to go to church. Still the old life
seemed to be gone. The Council and the Syndics treated the new pastors
as their servants, compelled them to render strict obedience to all
their decisions in ecclesiastical matters, and considered religion as a
political affair. It is undoubted that the morals of the town became
worse,--so bad that the pastors of Bern wrote a letter of expostulation
to the pastors in Geneva,[143]--and the Lord's Supper seems to have been
neglected. The contests between parties within the city became almost
scandalous, and the independent existence of Geneva was threatened.[144]
At the elections the Syndics failed to secure their re-election. Men of
more moderate views were chosen, and from this date (Feb. 1539) the idea
began to be mooted that Geneva must ask Calvin to return. Private
overtures were made to him, but he refused. Then came letters from the
Council, begging him to come back and state his terms. He kept silence.
Lausanne and Neuchâtel joined their entreaties to those of Geneva.
Calvin was not to be persuaded. His private letters reveal his whole
mind. He shuddered at returning to the turbulent city. He was not sure
that he was fit to take charge of the Church in Geneva. He was in peace
at Strassburg, minister to a congregation of his own countrymen; and the
pastoral tie once formed was not to be lightly broken; yet there was an
undercurrent drawing him to the place where he first began the ministry
of the Word. At length he wrote to the Council of Geneva, putting all
his difficulties and his longings before them--neither accepting nor
refusing. His immediate duty called him to the conference at Worms.
The people of Geneva were not discouraged. On the 19th October, the
_Council of the Two Hundred_ placed on their register a declaration that
every means must be taken to secure the services of "Maystre Johan
Calvinus," and on the 22nd a worthy burgher and member of the _Council
of the Two Hundred_, Louis Dufour, was despatched to Strassburg with a
letter from both the civic Councils, begging Calvin to return to his
"old place" (_prestine plache_), "seeing our people desire you
greatly," and promising that they would do what they could to content
him.[145] Dufour got to Strassburg only to find that Calvin had gone to
Worms. He presented his letters to the Council of the town, who sent
them on by an express (_eques celeri cursu_)[146] to Calvin (Nov. 6th,
1540). Far from being uplifted at the genuine desire to receive him back
again to Geneva, Calvin was terribly distressed. He took counsel with
his friends at Worms, and could scarcely place the case before them for
his sobs.[147] The intolerable pain he had at the thought of going back
to Geneva on the one hand, and the idea that Bucer might after all be
right when he declared that Calvin's duty to the Church Universal
clearly pointed to his return,[148] overmastered him completely. His
friends, respecting his sufferings, advised him to postpone all decision
until again in Strassburg. Others who were not near him kept urging him.
Farel thundered at him (_consterné par tes foudres_).[149] The pastors
of Zurich wrote (April 5th 1541):
"You know that Geneva lies on the confines of France, of Italy, and
of Germany, and that there is great hope that the Gospel may spread
from it to the neighbouring cities, and thus enlarge the ramparts
(_les boulevards_) of the kingdom of Christ.--You know that the
Apostle selected metropolitan cities for his preaching centres,
that the Gospel might be spread throughout the surrounding
towns."[150]
Calvin was overcome. He consented to return to Geneva, and entered the
city still suffering from his repugnance to undertake work he was not at
all sure that he was fitted to do. Historians speak of a triumphal
entry. There may have been, though nothing could have been more
distasteful to Calvin at any time, and eminently so on this occasion,
with the feelings he had. Contemporary documents are silent. There is
only the minute of the Council, as formal as minutes usually are,
relating that "Maystre Johan Calvin, ministre evangelique," is again in
charge of the Church in Geneva (Sept. 13th, 1541).[151]
Calvin was in Geneva for the second time, dragged there both times
unwillingly, his dream of a quiet scholar's life completely shattered.
The work that lay before him proved to be almost as hard as he had
foreseen it would be. The common idea that from this second entry Calvin
was master within the city, is quite erroneous. Fourteen years were
spent in a hard struggle (1541-55); and if the remaining nine years of
his life can be called his period of triumph over opponents (1555-64),
it must be remembered that he was never able to see his ideas of an
ecclesiastical organisation wholly carried out in the city of his
adoption. One must go to the Protestant Church of France to see Calvin's
idea completely realised.[152]
On the day of his entry into Geneva (Sept. 13th, 1541) the Council
resolved that a Constitution should be given to the Church of the city,
and a committee was formed, consisting of Calvin, his colleagues in the
ministry, and six members of the Council, to prepare the draft. The work
was completed in twenty days, and ready for presentation. On September
16th, however, it had been resolved that the draft when prepared should
be submitted for revision to the _Smaller Council_, to the _Council of
Sixty_, and finally to the _Council of Two Hundred_. The old opposition
at once manifested itself within these Councils. There seem to have been
alterations, and at the last moment Calvin thought that the Constitution
would be made worthless for the purpose of discipline and orderly
ecclesiastical rule. In the end, however, the drafted ordinances were
adopted unanimously by the _Council of Two Hundred_ without serious
alteration. The result was the famous _Ecclesiastical Ordinances of
Geneva_ in their first form. They did not assume their final form until
1561.[153]
When these _Ordinances_ of 1541 are compared with the principles of
ecclesiastical government laid down in the _Institutio_, with the
_Articles_ of 1537, and with the _Ordinances_ of 1561, it can be seen
that Calvin must have sacrificed a great deal in order to content the
magistrates of Geneva.
He had contended for the self-government of the Church, especially in
matters of discipline; the principle runs all through the chapters of
the fourth book of the _Institutio_. The _Ordinances_ give a certain
show of autonomy, and yet the whole authority really rests with the
Councils. The discipline was exercised by the _Consistory_ or session of
Elders (_Anciens_); but this Consistory was chosen by the _Smaller
Council_ on the advice of the ministers, and was to include two members
of the _Smaller Council_, four from the _Council of Sixty_, and six from
the _Council of Two Hundred_, and when they had been chosen they were to
be presented to the _Council of Two Hundred_ for approval. When the
Consistory met, one of the four Syndics sat as president, holding his
baton, the insignia of his magisterial office, in his hand, which, as
the revised _Ordinances_ of 1561 very truly said, "had more the
appearance of civil authority than of spiritual rule." The revised
_Ordinances_ forbade the president to carry his baton when he presided
in The Consistory, in order to render obedience to the distinction which
is "clearly shown in Holy Scripture to exist between the magistrate's
sword and authority and the superintendence which ought to be in the
Church"; but the obedience to Holy Scripture does not seem to have gone
further than laying aside the baton for the time. It appears also that
the rule of consulting the ministers in the appointments made to the
Consistory was not unfrequently omitted, and that it was to all intents
and purposes simply a committee of the Councils, and anything but
submissive to the pastors.[154] The Consistory had no power to inflict
civil punishments on delinquents. It could only admonish and warn. When
it deemed that chastisements were necessary, it had to report to the
Council, who sentenced. This was also done in order to maintain the
separation between the civil and ecclesiastical power; but, in fact, it
was a committee of the Council that reported to the Council, and the
distinction was really illusory. This state of matters was quite
repugnant to Calvin's cherished idea, not only as laid down in the
_Institution_, but as seen at work in the Constitution of the French
Protestant Church, which was mainly his authorship. "The magnificent,
noble, and honourable Lords" of the Council (such was their title) of
this small town of 13,000 inhabitants deferred in _words_ to the
teachings of Calvin about the distinction between the civil and the
spiritual powers, but in _fact_ they retained the whole power of rule or
discipline in their own hands; and we ought to see in the disciplinary
powers and punishments of the Consistory of Geneva, not an exhibition of
the working of a Church organised on the principles of Calvin, but the
ordinary procedure of the Town Council of a mediæval city. Their petty
punishments and their minute interference with private life are only
special instances of what was common to all municipal rule in the
sixteenth century.
Through that century we find a protest against the mediæval intrusion of
the ecclesiastical power into the realm of civil authority, with the
inevitable reaction which made the ecclesiastical a mere department of
national or civic administration. Zurich under Zwingli, although it is
usually taken as the extreme type of this Erastian policy, as it came to
be called later, went no further than Bern, Strassburg, or other places.
The Council of Geneva had legal precedent when they insisted that the
supreme ecclesiastical power belonged to them. The city had been an
ecclesiastical principality, ruled in civil as well as in
ecclesiastical things by its Bishop, and the Council were legally the
inheritors of the Bishop's authority. This meant, among other things,
that the old laws against heresy, unless specially repealed, remained on
the Statute Book, and errors in doctrine were reckoned to be of the
nature of treasonable things; and this made heresies, or variations in
religious opinion from what the Statute Book had declared to be the
official view of truth, liable to civil pains and penalties.
"Castellio's doubts as to the canonicity of the Song of Songs and
as to the received interpretation of Christ's descent into Hades,
Bolsec's criticism of predestination, Gryet's suspected scepticism
and possession of infidel books, Servetus' rationalism and
anti-Trinitarian creed, were all opinions judged to be criminal....
The heretic may be a man of irreproachable character; but if heresy
be treason against the State,"[155]
he was a criminal, and had to be punished for the crime on the Statute
Book. To say that Calvin burnt Servetus, as is continually done, is to
make one man responsible for a state of things which had lasted in
western Europe ever since the Emperor Theodosius declared that all men
were out of law who did not accept the Nicene Creed in the form issued
by Damasus of Rome. On the other hand, to release Calvin from his share
in that tragedy and crime by denying that he sat among the judges of the
heretic, or to allege that Servetus was slain because he conspired
against the liberties of the city, is equally unreasonable. Calvin
certainly believed that the execution of the anti-Trinitarian was right.
The Protestants of France and of Switzerland in 1903 (Nov. 1st) erected
what they called a _monument expiatoire_ to the victim of sixteenth
century religious persecution, and placed on it an inscription in which
they acknowledged their debt to the great Reformer, and at the same
time condemned his error,--surely the right attitude to assume.[156]
Calvin did three things for Geneva, all of which went far beyond its
walls. He gave its Church a trained and tested ministry, its homes an
educated people who could give a reason for their faith, and to the
whole city an heroic soul which enabled the little town to stand forth
as the Citadel and City of Refuge for the oppressed Protestants of
Europe.
The earlier preachers of the Reformed faith had been stray scholars,
converted priests and monks, pious artisans, and such like. They were
for the most part heroic men who did their work nobly. But some of them
had no real vocation for the position into which they had thrust
themselves. They had been prompted by such ignoble motives as discontent
with their condition, the desire to marry or to make legitimate
irregular connections,[157] or dislike to all authority and wholesome
restraints. They had brought neither change of heart nor of conduct into
their new surroundings, and had become a source of danger and scandal to
the small Protestant communities.
The first part of the _Ordinances_ was meant to put an end to such a
condition of things, and aimed at giving the Reformed Church a ministry
more efficient than the old priesthood, without claiming any specially
priestly character. The ministers were to be men who believed that they
were called by the voice of God speaking to the individual soul, and
this belief in a divine vocation was to be tested and tried in a
threefold way--by a searching examination, by a call from their
fellow-men in the Church, and by a solemn institution to office.
The examination, which is expressly stated to be the most important, was
conducted by those who were already in the office of the ministry. It
concerned, first, the knowledge which the candidate had of Holy
Scripture, and of his ability to make use of it for the edification of
the people; and, second, his walk and conversation in so far as they
witnessed to his power to be an example as well as a teacher. The
candidate was then presented to the _Smaller Council_. He was next
required to preach before the people, who were invited to say whether
his ministrations were likely to be for edification. These three tests
passed, he was then to be solemnly set apart by the laying on of the
hands of ministers, according to the usage of the ancient Church. His
examination and testing did not end with his ordination. All the
ministers of the city were commanded to meet once a week for the
discussion of the Scriptures, and at these meetings it was the duty of
every one, even the least important, to bring forward any cause of
complaint he believed to exist against any of his brethren, whether of
doctrine, or of morals, or of inefficient discharge of the duties
entrusted to his care. The pastors who worked in the villages were
ordered to attend as often as they could, and none of them were
permitted to be absent beyond one month. If the meeting of ministers
failed to agree on any matter brought before them, they were enjoined to
call in the Elders to assist them; and a final appeal was always allowed
to the Signory, or civil authority. The same rigid supervision was
extended to the whole people, and in the visitations for this purpose
Elders were always associated with ministers.[158] Every member of the
little republic, surrounded by so many and powerful enemies, was meant
to be a soldier trained for spiritual as for temporal warfare. Calvin
added a spiritual side to the military training which preserved the
independence of the little mediæval city republics.
He was unwearied in his exertions to make Geneva an enlightened town.
His educational policy adopted by the Councils was stated in a series of
famous regulations for the management of the schools and College of the
city.[159] He sought out and presented to the Council the most noted
scholars he could attract to Geneva. Mathurin Cordier, the ablest
preceptor that France had produced in his generation; Beza, its most
illustrious Humanist; Castellio and Saunier, were all teachers in the
city. The fame of its schools attracted almost as many as persecution
drove to take refuge within its walls. The religious instruction of the
young was carefully attended to. Calvin's earlier Catechism was revised,
and made more suitable for the young; and the children were so well
grounded that it became a common saying that a boy of Geneva could give
an answer for his faith as ably as a "doctor of the Sorbonne." But what
Geneva excelled in was its training for the ministry and other learned
professions. Men with the passion of learning in their blood came from
all lands--from Italy, Spain, England, Scotland, even from Russia, and,
above all, from France. Pastors educated in Geneva, taught by the most
distinguished scholars of the day, who had gained the art of ruling
others in having learned how to command themselves, went forth from its
schools to become the ministers of the struggling Protestants in the
Netherlands, in England, in Scotland, in the Rhine Provinces, and, above
all, in France. They were wise, indefatigable, fearless, ready to give
their lives for their work, extorting praise from unwilling mouths, as
modest, saintly, "with the name of Jesus ever on their lips" and His
Spirit in their hearts. What they did for France and other countries
must be told elsewhere.
The once disorderly city, a prey to its own internal factions, became
the citadel of the Reformation, defying the threats of Romanist France
and Savoy, and opening its gates to the persecuted of all lands. It
continued to be so for generations, and the victims of the _dragonnades_
of Louis XIV. received the welcome and protection accorded to the
sufferers under the Valois in the sixteenth century. What it did for
them may be best told in the words of a refugee:
"On the next day, a Sunday, we reached a small village on a hill
about a league from Geneva, from which we could see that city with
a joy which could only be compared to the gladness with which the
Israelites beheld the Land of Canaan. It was midday when we reached
the village, and so great was our eagerness to be as soon as
possible within the city which we looked on as our Jerusalem, that
we did not wish to stay even for food. But our conductor informed
us that on the Sunday the gates of Geneva were never opened until
after divine service, that is, until after four o'clock. We had
therefore to remain in the village until about that hour, when we
mounted our horses again. When we drew near to the town we saw a
large number of people coming out. Our guide was surprised, and the
more so when, arriving at the Plain-Palais, a quarter of a league
from the town, we saw coming to meet us, three carriages escorted
by halberdiers and followed by an immense crowd of people of both
sexes and of every age. As soon as we were seen, a servant of the
Magistracy approached us and prayed us to dismount to salute
respectfully 'Their Excellencies of Geneva,' who had come to meet
us and to bid us welcome. We obeyed. The three carriages having
drawn near, there alighted from each a magistrate and a minister,
who embraced us with tears of joy and with praises of our constancy
and endurance far greater than we merited.... Their Excellencies
then permitted the people to approach, and there followed a
spectacle more touching than imagination could picture. Several of
the inhabitants of Geneva had relatives suffering in the French
galleys (from which we had been delivered), and these good people
did not know whether any of them might be among our company. So one
heard a confused noise, 'My son so and so, my husband, my brother,
are you there?' One can imagine what embracings welcomed any of
our troop who could answer. All this crowd of people threw itself
on our necks with inexpressible transports of joy, praising and
magnifying the Lord for the manifestation of His grace in our
favour; and when Their Excellencies asked us to get on horseback
again to enter the city, we were scarcely able to obey, so
impossible did it seem to detach ourselves from the arms of these
pious and zealous brethren, who seemed afraid to lose sight of us.
At last we remounted and followed Their Excellencies, who conducted
us into the city as in triumph. A magnificent building had been
erected in Geneva to lodge citizens who had fallen into poverty. It
had just been finished and furnished, and no one had yet lived in
it. Their Excellencies thought it could have no better dedication
than to serve as our habitation. They conducted us there, and we
were soon on foot in a spacious court. The crowd of people rushed
in after us. Those who had found relatives in our company begged
Their Excellencies to permit them to take them to their houses--a
request willingly granted. M. Bosquet, one of us, had a mother and
two sisters in Geneva, and they had come to claim him. As he was my
intimate friend, he begged Their Excellencies to permit him to take
me along with him, and they willingly granted his request. Fired by
this example, all the burghers, men and women, asked Their
Excellencies to allow them the same favour of lodging these dear
brethren in their own houses. Their Excellencies having permitted
some to do this, a holy jealousy took possession of the others, who
lamented and bewailed themselves, saying that they could not be
looked on as good and loyal citizens if they were refused the same
favour; so Their Excellencies had to give way, and not one of us
was left in the Maison Française, for so they had called the
magnificent building."[160]
The narrative is that of a Protestant condemned to the galleys under
Louis XIV.; but it may serve as a picture of how Geneva acted in the
sixteenth century when the small city of 13,000 souls received and
protected nearly 6000 refugees driven from many different lands for
their religion.