07057.2 - Calvin's Work - 2

§57.2. Calvin’s Work -Part 2.

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.

Unfortunately Calvin inherited from the Theodosian Code and the Catholic Church the worst feature of the theocratic system, namely, the principle of appeal to the secular arm for the temporal, and, if necessary, capital punishment of spiritual offenses, as being offenses against the order and peace of society. This principle is inconsistent with liberty of conscience (which Beza called a diabolical dogma), and justifies all manner of persecution, as duty or policy may suggest. With his intense antagonism to the papal tyranny, he might have thrown off this relic of the Middle Ages, if it had not been for his conviction of the perpetual validity of the Mosaic civil code and his theocratic theory. He thought that the burning of innocent people by Romanists was no good reason why Protestants should spare the guilty.

It was the misfortune of Calvin that this false theory, which confounds two distinct spheres and ignores the spiritual nature of Christ’s kingdom, was brought to its severest test and explosion under his own eye, and to the perpetual injury of his fair fame. "We mean, of course, the terrible theological tragedy of the Spanish physician Michael Servetus, a restless fanatic, a pantheistic pseudo-reformer, and the most audacious and even blasphemous heretic of the sixteenth century, who attacked the doctrine of the Holy Trinity as tritheistic and atheistic, as the greatest monstrosity, and the source of all corruption in the Church. After being condemned to death, and burned in effigy by the Roman Catholic authorities in France, [SeeNote #879] he fled to Geneva, was arrested, tried, and executed at the stake, for heresy and blasphemy, by the civil government, with the full consent of Calvin, except that he made an ineffectual plea for a mitigation of the punishment (by a substitution of the sword for the fagot). [SeeNote #880]

Severely as we must condemn the great Reformer, from the standpoint of our modern civilization, for this the saddest mistake of his life, it is evident that even here he acted consistently and conscientiously, and that the blame attaches not to his personal character (for towards sincere and earnest heretics, like Lælius Socinus, he showed marked courtesy and leniency), but to his system, and not to his system alone, but to the inherited system of his age, which had not yet emerged from the traditions of the Romish pseudo-theocracy. The burning of Servetus was fully approved by all the Reformers-Beza, Farel, Bucer, Bullinger, even the mild and gentle Melanchthon. [SeeNote #881] If Romanists condemned Calvin, they did it from hatred of the man, and condemned him for following their own example even in this particular case. The public opinion of Christendom at that time and down to the eighteenth century justified the right and duty of civil government not only to protect but to support orthodoxy, and to punish heresy by imprisonment, exile, and death; and this right was exercised, with more or less severity, in all countries of Europe, and even in Puritan New England during the colonial period. Protestants differed from Romanists only in their definition of heresy, and by greater moderation in its punishment. Protestants complained of being innocently persecuted in France, Spain, Holland, and under the bloody Mary in England; and Catholics raised the same complaint against the systematic cruelty of the penal code of Queen Elizabeth, which looked to the utter extermination of Romanism and Puritanism alike. A protest against the principle of persecution, first raised by Justin Martyr and Tertullian in the early Church, but forgotten as soon as the Church ascended the throne of the Cæsars, was revived by heretical Anabaptists and Socinians, who themselves suffered from it, without having a chance to persecute their persecutors, and who thus became martyrs of religious freedom. All honor to them, even to Servetus, for the service they rendered under this view to future generations. Liberty is the sweet fruit of bitter persecution. During the seventeenth century this feeble and isolated protest was considerably strengthened by Arminians, Baptists, and Quakers for the same reason; and during the eighteenth century Christian liberality and philanthropy on the one hand, and religious indifferentism and infidelity on the other, made such progress that the doctrinal foundations of persecution were gradually undermined, and toleration (as it was first patronizingly and condescendingly called, and is still called in despotic countries) became the professed policy of civilized governments. But this is not enough: all Christian governments should legally recognize and protect liberty of conscience, as an inherent and inalienable right of every immortal soul; and this requires for its full realization a peaceful separation of Church and State, or an equality of all denominations before the law. In view of this radical revolution of public opinion on the subject of persecution, it becomes a practical question whether those sections of the Protestant confessions of faith which treat of the relation of Church and State should not be reconstructed and adapted to the principle of religious freedom, all the more since the Papal Syllabus has consistently condemned it, as being one of the errors of modern times. Such a change, at all events, is necessary in the United States, and has actually been made in the American revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles, and of the Westminster Confession. The principle of religious liberty does not necessarily, as was formerly supposed, imply indifference to truth or a weakening of intensity of conviction. It follows legitimately from a sharper discrimination between the secular and spiritual sphere, between the Old and the New Testaments, between the law of Moses and the gospel of Christ, and from the spirit and example of Him who said, ’My kingdom is not of this world,’ and who commanded the carnal-minded Peter to ’put up his sword into the sheath.’ God alone is Lord of the conscience, and allows no one with impunity to interfere with his sovereign right. Religion flourishes best in the atmosphere of freedom, and need not fear error as long as truth is left free to combat it.

It is nevertheless true that Calvinism, by developing the power of self-government and a manly spirit of independence which fears no man, though seated on a throne, because it fears God, the only sovereign, has been one of the chief agencies in bringing about this progress, and that civil and religious liberty triumphed first and most completely in Calvinistic countries. ’Calvin,’ says Guizot, ’is undoubtedly one of those who did most towards the establishment of religious liberty.’

Note #848 The eminent French historian, H. Martin (in his Histoire de France depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’en 1789, Tom. VIII. p. 325 of the fourth edition, Par. 1860), thus speaks of what Calvin did for the city of Geneva: ’Calvin ne la sauve pas seulement, mais conquiert à cette petite ville une grandeur, une puissance morale immense. Il en fait la capitale de la Réforme, autant que la Réforme peut avoir une capitale, pour la moitié du monde protestante, avec une vaste influence, acceptée ou subie, sur l’autre moitié. Genève n’est rien par la population, par les armes, par le territoire: elle est tout par l’esprit. Un seul avantage matériel lui garantit tous ses avantages moraux: son admirable position, qui fait d’elle une petite France républicaine et protestante, indépendante de la monarchie catholique de France et à l’abri de l’absorption monarchique et catholique; la Suisse protestante, alliée necessaire de la royauté française contre l’empereur, couvre Genève par la politique vis-à-vis du roi et par l’épée contre la maison d’Autriche et de Savoie. ’

Note #849

Kampschulte, Vol. 1. p. xii.: Der romanische Reformator zählte seine Anhänger in der romanischen, germanischen und slavischen Welt und zeigte sich überall, wo nicht das Lutherthum in dem deutschen Character eine Stütze fand, diesem überlegen. ’ He quotes the fact that in Bohemia, which borders on Germany, the Slavonian Protestants nearly all profess Calvinism, while Lutheranism is confined to the Germans. The same is still more the case with the Anglo-Saxon race in England, America, and Australia, and in the mission fields among the heathen. In Italy and Spain, too, the Waldenses and the evangelical Churches are, both in doctrine and discipline, much more Calvinistic than Lutheran; but so far Protestantism has a very feeble hold on the Latin races, which are more apt to swing from popery to infidelity, and from infidelity to popery, than to adopt thevia mediaeither of Lutheranism or Calvinism or Anglicanism.

Note #850

’In his vast correspondence we find him conversing familiarly with the Reformers-Farel, Viret, Beza, Bullinger, Bucer, Grynæus, Knox, Melanchthon-on the most important religious and theological questions of his age; counseling and exhorting Prince Condé, Jeanne D’Albret, mother of Henry IV., Admiral Coligny, the Duchess of Ferrara, King Sigismund of Poland, Edward VI. of England, and the Duke of Somerset; respectfully reproving Queen Marguerite of Navarre; withstanding libertines and the pseudo-Protestants; strengthening the martyrs, and directing the Reformation in Switzerland, France, Poland, England, and Scotland. He belongs to the small number of men who have exerted a moulding influence, not only upon their own age and country, but also upon future generations in various parts of the world; and not only upon the Church, but indirectly also upon the political, moral, and social life. The history of Switzerland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and the United States for the last three hundred years bears upon a thousand pages the impress of his mind and character. He raised the small republic of Geneva to the reputation of a Protestant Rome. He gave the deepest impulse to the Reform movement, which involved France, his native land, in a series of bloody civil wars, which furnished a host of martyrs to the evangelical faith, and which continues to live in that powerful nation in spite of the horrid massacre of St. Bartholomew and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the dragoonades and exile of hosts of Huguenots, who, driven from their native soil, carried their piety, virtue, and industry to all parts of Western Europe and North America. He kindled the religious fire which roused the moral and intellectual strength of Holland, and consumed the dungeons of the Inquisition and the fetters of the political despotism of Spain. His genius left a stronger mark on the national character of the Anglo-Saxon race and the Churches of Great Britain than their native Reformers. His theology and piety raised Scotland from a semi-barbarous condition, and made it the classical soil of Presbyterian Christianity, and one of the most enlightened, energetic, and virtuous countries on the face of the globe. His spirit stirred up the Puritan revolution of the seventeenth century, and his blood ran in the veins of Hampden and Cromwell, as well as Baxter and Owen. He may be called, in some sense, the spiritual father of New England and the American republic. Calvinism, in its various modifications and applications, was the controlling agent in the early history of our leading colonies (as Bancroft has shown); and Calvinism is, to this day, the most powerful element in the religious and ecclesiastical life of the Western world.’-From the author’s Essay on Calvin, in the Bibl. Sacra for 1857.

Note #851 On the interesting French colony in Brazil, 1556, consisting of two clergymen and about two hundred members of the Church of Geneva, see Stähelin, Vol. II. pp. 234 sqq. The colony was broken up by the interference of the French government and by Papal intrigues. But it was a harbinger of the later emigrations of persecuted Huguenots in several parts of North America, who enriched the Presbyterian, Dutch, and German Reformed and other Churches.

Note #852 Comp. Stähelin, Vol. II. pp. 198, 241.

Note #853 The Strasburg editors of Calvin’s Works, though belonging to the modern liberal school of theology, thus characterize him as a theologian (Opera, Vol. 1. p. ix.): ’Si Lutherum virum maximum, si Zwinglium civem Christianum nulli secundum, si Melanthonem præceptorem doctissimum merito appellaris, Calvinum jure vocaris theologorum principem et antesignanum. In hoc enim quis linguarum et literarum præsidia, quis disciplinarum fere omnium non miretur orbem? De cujus copia doctrinæ, rerumque dispositione aptissime concinnata, et argumentorum vi ac validitate in dogmaticis; de ingenii acumine et subtilitate, atque nunc festiva nunc mordaci salsedine in polemicis, de felicissima perspicuitate, sobrietate ac sagacitate in exegeticis, de nervosa eloquentia et libertate in paræneticis; de prudentia sapientiaque legislatoria in ecclesiis constituendis, ordinandis ac regendis incomparabili, inter omnes viros doctos et de rebus evangelicis libere sentientes jam abunde constat. Imo inter ipsos adversarios romanos nullus hodie est, vel mediocri harum rerum cognitione imbutus vel tantilla judicii præditus æquitate, qui argumentorum et sententiarum ubertatem, proprietatem verborum sermonemque castigatum, stili denique, tam latini quam gallici, gravitatem et luciditatem non admiretur. Quæ cuncta quum in singulis fere scriptis, tum præcipue relucent in immortali illa Institutione religionis Christianæ, quæ omnes ejusdem generis expositiones inde ab apostolorum temporibus conscriptas, adeoque ipsos Melanthonis Locos theologicos, absque omni controversia longe antecellit atque eruditum et ingenuum lectorem, etiamsi alicubi secus senserit, hodieque quasi vinetum trahit et vel invitum rapit in admirationem.’ To this we add a remarkable tribute of a liberal Roman Catholic historian who abhors Calvin’s doctrine of absolute predestination, and yet becomes eloquent when he speaks of the literary merits of his ’Institutes.’ ’Sein Lehrbuch der christlichen Religion, ’ says Kampschulte (Vol. 1. p. xiv.), ’bringt die kirchliche Revolution in ein System, das durch logische Schärfe, Klarheit des Gedankens, rücksichtslose Consequenz, die vor nichts zurückbebt, noch heute unser Staunen und unsere Bewunderung erregt. ’ Ibid. p. 274: ’Calvin’s Lehrbuch der christlichen Religion ist ohne Frage das hervorragendste und bedeutendste Erzeugniss, welches die reformatorische Literatur des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts auf dem Gebiete der Dogmatik aufzuweisen hat. Schon ein oberflächlicher Vergleich lässt uns den gewaltigen Fortschritt erkennen, den es gegenüber den bisherigen Leistungen auf diesem Gebiete bezeichnet. Statt der unvollkommenen, nach der einen oder andern Seite unzulänglichen Versuche Melanchthon’s, Zwingli’s, Farel’s erhalten wir aus Calvin’s Hand das Kunstwerk eines, wenn auch nicht harmonisch in sich abgeschlossenen, so doch wohlgegliederten, durchgebildeten Systems, das in allen seinen Theilen die leitenden Grundgedanken widerspiegelt und von vollständiger Beherrschung des Stoffes zeugt. Es hatte eine unverkennbare Berechtigung, wenn man den Verfasser der Institution als den Aristoteles der Reformation bezeichnete. Die ausserordentliche Belesenheit in der biblischen und patristischen Literatur, wie sie schon in den früheren Ausgaben des Werkes hervortritt, setzt in Erstaunen. Die Methode ist lichtvoll und klar, der Gedankengang streng logisch, überall durchsichtig, die Eintheilung und Ordnung des Stoffes dem leitenden Grundgedanken entsprechend; die Darstellung schreitet ernst und gemessen vor und nimmt, obschon in den späteren Ausgaben mehr gelehrt als anziehend, mehr auf den Verstand als auf das Gemüth berechnet, doch zuweilen einen höheren Schwung an. Calvin’s Institution enthält Abschnitte, die dem Schönsten, was von Pascal und Bossuet geschrieben worden ist, an die Seite gestellt werden können: Stellen, wie jene über die Erhabenheit der heiligen Schrift, über das Elend des gefallenen Menschen, über die Bedeutung des Gebetes, werden nie verfehlen, auf den Leser einen tiefen Eindruck zu machen. Auch von den katholischen Gegnern Calvin’s sind diese Vorzüge anerkannt und manche Abschnitte seines Werkes sogar benutzt worden. Man begreift es vollkommen, wenn er selbst mit dem Gefühl der Befriedigung und des Stolzes auf sein Werk blickt und in seinen übrigen Schriften gern auf das "Lehrbuch" zurückverweist. ’

Note #854 The full title of the first edition is ’Christia- | næ Religionis Insti- | tutio totam fere pietatis summam et quic | quid est in doctrina salutis cognitu ne- | cessarium, complectens: omnibus pie- | tatis studiosis lectu dignissi- | mum opus, ac re- | cens edi- | tum. | Præfatio ad Chri- | stianissimum Regem Franciæ, qua | hic ei liber pro confessione fidei | offertur. | Joanne Calvino | Nouiodunensi authore. | Basileæ, | M.D.XXXVI. ’ The dedicatory Preface is dated ’X. Calendas Septembres ’ (i.e. August 23), without the year; but at the close of the book the month of March, 1536, is given as the date of publication. The first two French editions (1541 and 1545) supplement the date of the Preface correctly: ’De Basle le vingt-troysiesme d’Aoust mil cinq cent trente cinq. ’ The manuscript, then, was completed in Aug. 1535, but it took nearly a year to print it. The eighth and last improved edition from the pen of the author bears the title: ’Institutio Chri- | stianæ Religionis, in libros qua- | tuor nunc primum digesta, certisque distincta capitibus, ad aptissimam | methodum: aucta etiam tam magna accessione ut propemodum opus | novum haberi possit. | Joanne Calvino authore. | Oliva Roberti Stephani. | Genevæ. | M.D.LIX. ’

Note #855

’In doctrina, ’ says Beza, towards the close of his Vita Calv., ’quam initio tradidit ad extremum constans nihil prorsus immutavit, quod paucis nostra memoria theologis contigit. ’ Bretschneider was quite mistaken when he missed in the first edition the doctrine of predestination, which is clearly though briefly indicated, pp. 91 and 138. See Kampschulte, p. 256.

Note #856 The Strasburg editors devote the first four volumes to the different editions of the Institutes in both languages. Vol. 1. contains the editio princeps Latina, of Basle, 1536 (pp. 10-247), and the variations of six editions intervening between the first and the last, viz., the Strasburg editions of 1539, 1543, 1545, and the Geneva editions of 1550, 1553, 1554 (pp. 253-1152); Vol. II. the editio postrema of 1559 (pp. 1-1118); Vol. III. and IV. the last edition of the French translation, or free reproduction rather (1560), with the variations of former editions. The question of the priority of the Latin or French text is now settled in favor of the former. See Jules Bonnet, in the Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire du protestantisme français for 1858, Vol. VI. pp. 137 sqq., Stähelin, Vol. 1. p. 55, and the Strasburg editors of the Opera, in the ample Prolegomena to Vols. 1. and III. Calvin himself says expressly (in the Preface to his French ed. 1541) that he first wrote the Institutes in Latin (’premièrement l’ay mis en latin ’) for readers of all nations, and that he translated them afterwards for the special benefit of Frenchmen. In a letter to his friend, Francis Daniel, dated Lausanne, Oct. 13, 1536, he writes that he began the French translation soon after the publication of the Latin (Letters, ed. Bonnet, Vol. 1. p. 21), but it did not appear till 1541, bearing the title ’Institution de la religion Chrestiennecomposée en latin,par Jean Calvin, et translatée en français par luymesme.’ The erroneous assertion of a French original, so often repeated (by Bayle, Maimbourg, Basnage, and more recently by Henry, Vol. 1. p. 104; III. p. 177; Dorner, Gesch. der protest. Theol. p. 375; H. B. Smith, 1.c. p. 283; and Guizot, p. 176, who assumes that the first French ed. was published anonymously), arose from confounding the date of the Preface in the French editions (23 Aug. 1535) with the later date of publication (1536). It is quite possible, however, that the dedication to Francis 1. was first written in French, and this would most naturally account for the earlier date in the French editions. On the difference of the several editions, comp. also J. Thomas, Histoire de l’instit. chrétienne de J. Calv., Strasb. 1859, and Köstlin, Calvin’s Institutio nach Form und Inhalt, in the Studien und Kritiken for 1868.

Note #857

See the Preface in Opera, Vol. IX. pp. 847-850. It is written in excellent taste, and with profound respect and affection for Melanchthon, whose work, he concludes, ’conduit à la pure verité de Dieu, à laquelle it nous convient tenir, nous servant des hommes pour nous aider à y parvenir. ’

Note #858

See the eulogies of Bucer, Beza, Sainte-Marthe, Thurius, Blunt, Salmasius, John von Müller, and others, quoted by Henry and Stähelin (Vol. 1. pp. 59 sqq.). To these may be added some more recent testimonies. Guizot says (1.c. p. 173): ’The Institutes were and are still the noblest monument of the greatness of mind and originality of idea which distinguished Calvin in his own century. More than that, I believe this book to be the most valuable and enduring of all his labors; 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 which are incompatible with the progress of liberty, have still, for more than three centuries, been the source of all their strength and vitality.’ Hase (in his Kirchengeschichte ) calls the Institutes ’die grossartigste wissenschaftliche Rechtfertigung des Augustinismus voll religiösen Tiefsinns in unerbittlicher Folgerichtigkeit der Gedanken. ’ G. Frank (Gesch. der Protest. Theol. Vol. 1. p. 74): ’Wie Melanchthon hat auch Calvin seinen Glauben zusammengefasst in einem besonderen Werke, der Inst. rel. chr., nur methodischer, folgerichtiger, überlegner, die grösste Glaubenslehre des 16 Jahrh. ist sie wie ein hochgewölbter, dunkler Dom, darin der Ernst der Religion in andächtigem Schauer sich über die Seele legt. ’ H. B. Smith (1.c. p. 288): ’It is the most complete system [of theology] which the 16th century produced, nor has it been supplanted by any single work.’ Baur (Dogmengeschichte, Vol. III. p. 27) calls it ’in every respect a truly classical work, distinguished in a high degree by originality and acuteness of conception, systematic consistency, and clear, luminous method.’ To many editions of the Institutes the well-known distich of the Hungarian Paul Thurius is affixed: ’Præter apostolicas post Christi tempora chartas, Huic peperere libro sæcula nulla parem. ’

Note #859

Florimond de Ræmond, Histoire de la naissance, progrez et decadence de l’hérésie de ce siècle, pp. 838, 883, quoted by Kampschulte (p. 278), who adds: ’Seine Schrift des Reformationszeitalters ist von den Katholiken mehr gefürchtet, eifriger bekämpft und verfolgt worden, als Calvin’s Christliche Institution. ’ See his own judgment quoted on pp. 446 sq., note.

Note #860 The first edition of the Institutes contains only six chapters: 1. De lege, with an explanation of the Decalogue; 2. De fide, with an exposition of the Apostles’ Creed; 3. De oratione, with an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer; 4. Of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; 5. Of the other so-called Sacraments; 6. Of Christian liberty, Church-government, and discipline.

Note #861

Schleiermacher, the greatest divine of the nineteenth century, has defended Calvinism as the only consistent system on the basis of the orthodox anthropology and eschatology (though he runs it out into a final, unscriptural universalism); and his pupil, Alexander Schweizer, of Zurich (in his Glaubenslehre der evang. reform. Kirche, Vol. 1. pp. 79 and 81), thus clearly and sharply states the logical aspect of the case: ’Der reformirte Lehrbegriff, consequent gegründet auf das Materialprincip schlechthiniger Abhängigkeit von Gott und von da aus das menschliche Thun beleuchtend, ohne dessen willensmässige Natur zu verkleinern, ist weniger durch seinen Determinismus anstössig geworden, als durch das dualistisch Particularistische der auf die Prädestination angewandten Weltansicht. Gerade dieses aber gehört der Weltansicht aller damaligen Confessionen gleich sehr an and folgt wirklich aus der Vorstellung, dass unser ewiges Loos beim irdischen Sterben entschieden sei, nur hienieden Erlöste selig werden, alle Andern aber verdammt bleiben. . . . Das Harte am reformirten Lehrbegriff ist der dualistische Particularismus, der aber allen Confessionen gemein durch die reformirte Consequenz nur heller in’s Licht gestellt wird, wodurch allein, falls er irrig wäre, die Förderung zur Wahrheit angebahnt ist. 1. Dualistischer Particularismus ist die Idee, dass in der Menschen- und Engelwelt die einen selig werden, die andern ewig verdammt. Diess war die Ansicht aller kirchlichen Confessionen, indem der Universalismus, die Beseligung aller rationalen Kreaturen in allen drei Confessionen, als hæretische Irrlehre abgewiesen wurde. 2. Liegt im Particularismus Hartes, die Güte Gottes Beschränkendes, so ist es ungerecht, darüber nur die reformirte Confession anzugehen, die weiter nichts gethan, als gelehrt hat: Das Weltergebniss müsse dem Weltplan entsprechen, somit habe Gott ewig grade diese Welt mit diesem Ergebniss gewollt und eine particularistische Prädestination bei sich beschlossen, wovon nun alle Weltentwicklung einfach die Ansführung sei; denn dass alles anders herauskomme, als Gott es gewollt, heisse Gott von den Kreaturen abhängig machen, die Kreaturen zu Göttern machen, Gott aber zum Ungott. ’ Comp. also Baur, Dogmengeschichte, Vol. III. (1867), pp. 144 sqq.

Note #862

’Præscientiam quum tribuimus Deo, significamus omnia semper fuisse ac perpetuo mamere sub ejus oculis; ut ejus notitiæ nihil futurum aut præteritum, sed omnia sint præsentia, et sic quidem præsentia, ut non ex ideis tantum imaginetur (qualiter nobis obversantur ea quorum memoriam mens nostra retinet), sed tanquam ante se posita vere intueatur ac cernat. Atque hæc præscientia ad universum mundi ambitum et ad omnes creaturas extenditur. Prædestinationem vocamus æternum Dei decretum, quo apud se constitutum habuit, quid de unoquoque homine fieri vellet.Non enim pari conditione creantur omnes; sed aliis vita æterna, aliis damnatio æterna præordinatur. Itaque, prout in alterutrum finem quisque conditus est, ita vel ad vitam, vel ad mortem prædestinatum dicimus.’ Instit. Lib. III. 100. 21, §5 (Opera, Vol. II. pp. 682, 683). Comp. his Articuli de prædest., first published from an autograph of Calvin, Vol. IX. p. 713.

Note #863

’Iterum quæro, unde factum est ut tot gentes una cum liberis eorum infantibus æternæ morti involveret lapsus Adæ absque remedio, nisi quia Deo ita visum est?Hic obmutescere oportet tam dicaces alioqui linguas. Decretum quidem horribile, fateor; infitiari tamen nemo poterit quin præsciverit Deus, quem exitum esset habiturus homo, antequam ipsum conderet, et ideo præsciverit, quia decreto suo sic ordinarat. In præscientiam Dei si quis hic invehatur, temere et inconsulte impingit. Quid enim, quæso, est cur reus agatur cœlestis judex quia non ignoraverit quod futurum erat? In prædestinationem competit, si quid est vel justæ vel speciosæ querimoniæ. Nec absurdum videri debet quod dico, Deum non modo primi hominis casum, et in eo posterorum ruinam prævidisse, sed arbitrio quoque suo dispensasse.Ut enim ad ejus sapientiam pertinet, omnium quæ futura sunt esse præscium, sic ad potentiam, omnia manu sua regere ac moderari. ’ Instit. Lib. III. 100. 23, §7 (Vol. II. p. 704).

Note #864

’Lapsus est enim primus homo, quia Dominus ita expedire censuerat; cur censuerit, nos latet. Certum tamen est non aliter censuisse, nisi quia videbat, nominis sui gloriam inde merito illustrari. Unde mentionem gloriæ Dei audis, illic justitiam cogita. Justum enim esse oportet quod laudem meretur. Cadit igitur homo, Dei providentia sic ordinante, sed suo vitio cadit. . . .Propria ergo malitia, quam acceptrat a Domino puram naturam corrupit; sua ruina totam posteritatem in exitium secum attraxit.’ Instit. Lib. III. 100. 23, §8 (Vol. II. p. 705). The difference between the supralapsarians and infralapsarians was not agitated at the time of Calvin, but afterwards during the Arminian controversy in Holland. Both schools appealed to him. The difference is more speculative than moral and practical. In creating man free, God created him necessarily temptable and liable to fall, but the fall itself is man’s own act and abuse of freedom. God decreed sin not efficiently but permissively, not as an actual fact but as a mere possibility, not for its own sake but for the sake of the good or as a negative condition of redemption. Besides, sin has no positive character, is no created substance, bat it is privative and negative, and consists simply in the abuse of faculties and gifts essentially good.

Note #865

There is a dispute about the precise meaning of Art. XVII.; but, as Prof. Fisher says (The Reform. p. 335), ’the article can not fairly be interpreted in any other sense than that of unconditional election; and the cautions which are appended, instead of being opposed to this interpretation, demonstrate the correctness of it."

Note #866

Can. IV.: ’Ita Deus gloriam suam illustrare constituit, ut decreverit, primo quidem hominem integrum creare. tum ejusdem lapsum permittere, ac demum ex lapsis quorundam misereri, adeoque eosdem eligere, alios vero in corrupta massa Relinquere, æternoque tandem exitio devovere. ’ This does not go beyond the limits of Augustinianism. Van Oosterzee errs when he says (Christian Dogmatics, Vol. 1. p. 452) that the Form. Cons. Hel. asserts the supralapsarian view; while Hodge errs on the other side when he says (Syst. Theol. Vol. II. p. 317) that this document contains ’a formal repudiation of the supralapsarian view.’

Note #867

Dr. Hodge, who best represents the Old School Calvinism in America, rejects supralapsarianism and defends infralapsarianism, which he defines thus (Syst. Theol. Vol. II. pp. 319 and 320): ’According to the infralapsarian doctrine, God, with the design to reveal his own glory-that is, the perfections of his own nature-determined to create the world; secondly, to permit the fall of man; thirdly, to elect from the mass of fallen men a multitude whom no man could number as "vessels of mercy;" fourthly, to send his Son for their redemption; and, fifthly, to leave the residue of mankind, as he left the fallen angels, to suffer the just punishment of their sins.’

Note #868

Calvin taught his view of the Eucharist in the first edition of his Institutes (cap. 4, De Sacramentis, pp. 236 sqq., in the new ed. of the Opera, Vol. 1. pp. 118 sqq.; comp. Ebrard, Das Dogma 5. heil. Abendmahl, Vol. II. p. 412), and in the Confessio fidei de eucharistia. (1537); then more fully in the later editions of the Institutes, 1.c. Lib. IV. cap. 17, 18; in his two Catechisms (1538 and 1542); in his admirable tract De Cœna Domini (first in French, 1541, then in Latin, 1545; see Opera, Vol. V. pp. 429-460); in the Consensus Tigurinus (1549); and he defended it in several polemical treatises against Westphal (1555-1557) and Heshusius (1561).

Note #869

See, on this whole subject, the very elaborate exposition of Ebrard, Das Dogma 5. heil. Abendmahl, Vol. II. pp. 402-525; Baur, Geschichte der christl. Kirche, Vol. IV. pp. 398-402; and Nevin’s article on the Reformed Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, in the Mercersburg Review for Sept. 1850, pp. 421-548 (in defense of his ’Mystical Presence’). Dr. Nevin has clearly and correctly stated Calvin’s doctrine of the Eucharist and abundantly fortified it with quotations from all the symbolical standards, in entire harmony with Ebrard (who indorsed him in the Studien und Kritiken ). After rejecting both the dogma of transubstantiation and consubstantiation, he says (p. 429): ’In opposition to this view, the Reformed Church taught that the participation of Christ’s flesh and blood in the Lord’s Supper is spiritual only, and in no sense corporal. The idea of a local presence in the case was utterly rejected. The elements can not be said to comprehend or include the body of the Saviour in any sense. It is not there, but remains constantly in heaven, according to the Scriptures. It is not handled by the minister and taken into the mouth of the communicant. The manducation of it is not oral, but only by faith. It is present in fruition accordingly to believers only in the exercise of faith; the impenitent and unbelieving receive only the naked symbols, bread and wine, without any spiritual advantage to their own souls. Thus we have the doctrine defined and circumscribed on both sides; with proper distinction from all that may be considered a tendency to Rationalism in one direction, and from all that may be counted a tendency to Romanism in the other. It allows the presence of Christ’s person in the sacrament, including even his flesh and blood, so far as the actual participation of the believer is concerned. Even the term real presence Calvin tells us he was willing to employ, if it were to be understood as synonymous with true presence; by which he means a presence that brings Christ truly into communion with the believer in his human nature as well as in his divine nature. The word real, however, was understood ordinarily to denote a local, corporal presence, and on this account was not approved. To guard against this, it may be qualified by the word spiritual; and the expression will then be quite suitable to the nature of the doctrine as it has been now explained. A real presence, in opposition to the notion that Christ’s flesh and blood are not made present to the communicant in any way. A spiritual real presence, in opposition to the idea that Christ’s body is in the elements in a local or corporal manner. Not real simply, and not spiritual simply, but real and yet spiritual at the same time. The body of Christ is in heaven, the believer on earth; but by the power of the Holy Ghost, nevertheless, the obstacle of such vast local distance is fully overcome, so that in the sacramental act, while the outward symbols are received in an outward way, the very body and blood of Christ are at the same time inwardly and supernaturally communicated to the worthy receiver, for the real nourishment of his new life. Not that the material particles of Christ’s body are supposed to be carried over, by this supernatural process, into the believer’s person. The communion is spiritual, not material. It is a participation of the Saviour’s life; of his life, however, as human, subsisting in a true bodily form. The living energy, the vivific virtue, as Calvin styles it, of Christ’s flesh, is made to flow over into the communicant, making him more and more one with Christ himself, and thus more and more an heir of the same immortality that is brought to light in his person.’

Note #870 In his exposition of Genesis 3:15, he understands the ’woman’s seed ’ collectively of the human family in its perpetual struggle with Satan, which at last culminates in the victory of Christ, the head of the race. Comp. also his remarks on Isaiah 4:2; Isaiah 6:3; Psalms 33:6; Matthew 2:15; Hebrews 2:6-8.

Note #871 Reuss: Geschichte der H. Schriften des N. T., 4th edition, p. 564.

Note #872

See the frequent references to him in the Commentaries of Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Lücke, Bleek, De Wette, Meyer, Alford; also the Essay of Tholuck, ’Die Verdienste Calvin’s als Ausleger der heil. Schrift, ’ 1831 (reprinted in his Vermischte Schriften, Vol. II. pp. 330-360); Ed. Reuss, Calvin considéré comme exégète (Revue, Vol. VI. p. 223); and Stähelin, Joh. Calvin, Vol. 1. pp. 182 sqq. Stähelin says (p. 198): ’Der altlestamentliche wie der neutestamentliche Bibelerklärer, der Lutheraner, wie der Unirte und Reformirte, der wissenschaftliche Exeget, wie der populäre Schriftausleger alle schöpften und schöpfen immer noch aus der Arbeit Calvins bei weitem das Meiste und Beste, was sie von Schrifterklärung aus dem Reformationszeitalter beibringen. ’ Comp. also Kahnis, Dogmatik, Vol. II. p. 492, and Herzog, Encykl. Vol. II. p. 528.

Note #873

John Knox, the Reformer of Scotland, who studied at the feet of Calvin, though four years his senior, in a letter to his friend Locke, in 1556, called the Church of Geneva ’the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the Apostles. In other places I confess Christ to be truly preached; but manners and religion to be so sincerely reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place besides.’ Farel wrote, in 1557, that he never saw Geneva in such excellent condition before, and that he wonld rather be the last there than the first any where else. There, it was said, the pure gospel is preached in all temples and houses (Calvin himself preached daily, every other week); there the music of psalms never ceases; there hands are folded and hearts lifted up to heaven from morning till night and from night until morning. The Italian refugee, Bernardino Ochino, gives a most favorable description of the moral condition of Geneva. See his Life by Beurath (1875), p. 169.

Note #874

Dr. Valentine Andreæ of Würtemberg (a grandson of Jacob Andreæ, the chief author of the Formula of Concord), a great and shining light of the Lutheran Church in Germany during the desolations of the Thirty-Years’ War (d. 1654), visited Geneva in the early part of the seventeenth century, and held it up as a model of moral purity well worthy of imitation. ’Als ich in Genf war, ’ he says in his Respublica Christianopolitana, 1619, ’bemerkte ich etwas Grosses, woran die Erinnerung, ja vielmehr, wonach die Sehnsucht nur mit meinem Leben absterben wird. Nicht nur findet sich hier das vollkommene Institut einer vollkommenen Republik, sondern als eine besondere Zierde und Mittel der Disciplin eine Sittenzucht, nach welcher über die Sitten und selbst die geringsten Ueberschreitungen der Bürger wöchentlich Untersuchung angestellt wird, zuerst durch die Viertelsinspectoren, dann durch die Senioren, endlich durch den Magistrat, je nachdem der Frevel der Sache oder die Verhärtung und Verstockung der Schuldigen es erfordern. In Folge dessen sind denn alle Fluchworte, alles Würfel- und Kartenspiel, Ueppigkeit, Uebermuth, Zank, Hass, Betrug, Luxus, u.s.w., geschweige denn grössere Vergehungen, die fast unerhört sind, untersagt. Welche herrliche Zierde für die christliche Religion solche Sittenreinheit, vor der wir mil allen Thränen beweinen müssen, dass sie uns fehlt und fast ganz venachlässigt wird, und alle Gutgesinnten sich anstrengen, dass sie in’s Leben gerufen werde! Mich, wofern mich die Verschiedenheit der Religion nicht abgehalten, hätte die sittliche Uebereinstimmung hier auf ewig gefesselt, und mit allem Eifer habe ich von da an getrachtet, dass etwas Aehnliches auch unserer Kirche zu Theil würde. Nicht geringer als die öffentliche Zucht war auch die häusliche meines Hausherrn Scarron ausgezeichnet durch stetige Gebetsübungen, Lectüre der heiligen Schrift, Gottesfurcht in Worten und Thaten, Masshalten in Speise und Kleidung, dass ich eine grössere Sittenreinheit selbst im väterlichen Hause nicht gesehen. ’

Note #875 The Haldanes repaid the debt of Scotland to Geneva, and, in connection with Cesar Malan, gave the first impulse to a revival which resulted in the establishment of a Free Church, and a school of theology distinguished by the labors of Gaussen, Merle d’Aubigné, Pronier, La Harpe. The old National Church which Calvin founded has likewise undergone a salutary change, though the old rigor can never be restored. In point of literary culture and social refinement, Geneva always retained the first rank among French cities next to Paris.

Note #876

See Calvin’s Instructio adv. fanaticam et furiosam sectam Libertinorum, qui se Spirituales vocant, written first in French, 1544, Opera, Vol. VII. pp. 145-252. Comp. Trechsel’s art. Libertiner in Herzog’s Real-Encykl., and Stähelin, Vol. 1. pp. 383 sqq.

Note #877

Kampschulte, Vol. 1. p. 471: ’Der Grundgedanke, von dem der Gesetzgeber Genfs ausgeht, ist die Theokratie.Calvin will in Genf den Gottesstaat herstellen. Nur Einer ist ihm König und Herr in Staat und Kirche: Gott im Himmel. In seinem Namen herrscht jede irdische Gewalt. Gottes Herrscherruhm zu verkündigen, seine Majestät zu verherrlichen, seinen heiligen Willen zur Ausführung zu bringen und seine Bekenner zu heiligen, ist die gemeinsame Aufgabe von Staat und Kirche.’ Comp. Stähelin, Vol. 1. pp. 319 sqq.

Note #878

Guizot says of this ecclesiastical organization (p. 265): ’In its origin it was a profoundly Christian and evangelical system; it was republican in many of its fundamental principles and practices, and at the same time it recognized the necessity of authority and order, and originated general and permanent rules of discipline.’ Michelet calls the Geneva of Calvin ’the city of the spirit, founded by Stoicism on the rock of predestination;’ and Kampschulte (p. 430), ’the metropolis of a grand, sublime, and terrible idea.’

Note #879

See the acts of the process of Servetus at Vienne and Lyons (first published by the Abbé d’Artigny, Paris, 1749), in Calvin’s Opera, Vol. VIII. pp. 833 sqq.

Note #880 For full discussion of the trial and execution of Servetus and Calvin’s part in them, see Schaff: Ch. Hist., VII., 680-793. A large boulder has been placed by Swiss and French Protestants at the spot where the Spaniard suffered, to serve as an expiatory monument, expressing regret for the tragedy and at the same time respect for Calvin. On the one side is the record that Michael Servetus of Villeneuve, Aragon, b., Sept. 29, 1511, was executed there, Oct. 26, 1553, and on the other the inscription: Fils respectueux et reconnaissants de Calvin, notre grand Réformateur, mais condamnant une erreur qui fut celle de son siècle et fermement attachés à la liberté de conscience selon les vrais principes de la Réformation et de l’Evangile nous avons élevé ce monument expiatoire,Leviticus 27:1-34Octobre, 1903.(We, respectful children of Calvin, our great Reformer, but condemning an error which was the error of his age and firmly attached to liberty of conscience according to the true principles of the Reformation and the Gospel, have erected this expiatory monument, Oct. 27, 1903). Calvin was called by Renan "the most Christian man of his age.".

Note #881

It may he questioned whether Zwingli and Luther, had they lived, would have sanctioned the execution; their impulses at least were more liberal. With all his polemic violence in argument, Luther disapproved of the shocking cruelties against the Anabaptists in Germany, and said that ’on this plan, the hangman would be the best theologian.’