Letters of John Calvin, Volume II

263

"To John Haller, Pastor of the Bernese Church."

264

See note 2, p. 224.

265

The ministers of the Pays de Vaud were accustomed to meet weekly to consult about religious matters, and for mutual exhortation. This custom displeased the Seigneurs of Berne, who abolished it by an edict dated 2d September 1549, under pretext that those assemblies, instead of producing edification, engendered disputes, divisions, and disorders. The College of Lausanne protested in vain, through Viret, against this measure, which obtained the approbation of the leading ministers of Berne, notwithstanding the strong representations addressed by Calvin to Haller and Musculus. – Ruchat, tom. v. p. 382, et suiv.

266

Deposed from the ministry, and appointed Principal of the College of Lausanne, Zebedee ranked among the most violent adversaries of Viret and of Calvin. Numerous testimonies to his animosity against the Reformation will be found in the sequel.

267

Pope Paul III. died on the 20th November 1549, of grief and rage, on hearing of the treachery of his grandson Octave Farnese, who, to obtain the restitution of Parma, joined the cause of the Emperor against his grandfather. – De Thou, b. vi.; Robertson, b. x.

268

The title: – To the father of Mademoiselle de Saint-Lorrans. Sans date (1549?) This gentleman retired in the following year to Geneva.

269

On the back, in the hand writing of Calvin: "To Monsieur the Protector of England. – Sent."

270

During his disgrace, which was regarded as a public calamity by the friends of the Reformation in England and throughout Europe, the Duke of Somerset had sought consolation in reading and in pious meditations. He translated into English a work on Patience, to which he added a preface containing the expression of the most elevated sentiments. He received also exhortations from Peter Martyr, and shewed himself no less constant in his attachment to the Gospel, than resigned to the loss of fortune and credit. – See Burnet, History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 184; vol. iii. p. 209, fol. London.

271

The young King Edward VI. Instructed by the most able masters, this prince gave early proof of a strong mind and of a lively piety. When scarcely fourteen years of age, he set forth in a discourse, of which a fragment has been preserved, the plan of the Reformation in England. He drew up with much care a journal of events which happened during his reign. He composed, besides, a collection of passages of the Old Testament condemning idolatry and image-worship. This collection, written in French, was dedicated by the young King to the Duke of Somerset, his uncle. – Burnet, History of the Reformation, vol. ii. pp. 224, 225.

272

The letter to the Protector, of January 1550.

273

See Note 3, pp. 240-1.

274

The Reformer having attacked the Interim in one of his writings, was accused of Pelagianism by a German theologian, perhaps Flacius Illyricus. He replied to this accusation in a publication entitled, Appendix Libelli de vera Ecclesiæ reformandæ ratione, in qua refutat Censuram quamdam typographi ignoti de parvalorum Sanctificatione et muliebri Baptismo. Geneva, 1550.

275

The pontifical chair, rendered vacant in the month of November 1549, by the death of Paul III., was occupied in the month of February of the following year by the Cardinal del Monte, who took the name of Julius III. The irregularities of his past life, and the disgraceful accusations which rested on his character, rendered him very unfit to be a reformer of the Church.

276

On the back: "To the very Illustrious M. Francis Dryander, a Spaniard, at Baslo, with M. Myconius."

277

"To Nicolas Colladon, a man distinguished for piety and learning."

278

In allusion to the various members of the Colladon family, who were contemplating a removal to Geneva.

279

Anne Colladon, the sister of Nicolas, was on the point of being married to Laurent de Normandie. See Note 1, p. 217.

280

Three years after the death of Gruet, beheaded for the crime of rebellion and of blasphemy, (see the note p. 226,) there was discovered in a garret of his house a writing in his own hand, of twenty-six pages, which was brought to the magistrates of Geneva. These latter submitted the document to Calvin, who drew up his opinion in the Memorial which we here reproduce, as an undeniable evidence of the religious doctrines and the morals professed by some of the chiefs of the Libertin party.

281

The proclamation of the Interim plunged Germany into a state of extraordinary confusion. Some towns were so bold as to present remonstrances to the Emperor, and protested against an arbitrary edict, which reprobated alike the partisans of the ancient worship and those of the new. But their voice was not heard, and the greater number of the towns submitted. There were even theologians compliant enough to legitimize this submission. Of this number was Melanchthon, who, by his virtues and his knowledge, deserved the first rank among the Reformed doctors, but who, deprived now of the manly exhortations of Luther, and led away by an excessive love of peace, and by the natural weakness of his character, was making concessions which cannot be justified. Led by his example, and seduced by the artifices of the Elector Maurice, the Assembly of Leipsic declared that in matters purely indifferent we ought to obey the orders of our lawful superiors, – a dangerous principle, which applied to ceremonies, and led to the revival of the grossest and most pernicious errors of the Romish Church. Melanchthon himself wrote a great number of the letters of [Greek: Adiáphoros]Αδιάφορος [indifferent], in support of this doctrine, and his weakness drew down upon him the most violent reproaches from the zealous Lutherans, who accused him of being an accomplice of the enemies of the Gospel. – Sleidan, book xxii.; Robertson, book x. Moved by this sad news, Calvin did not hesitate to blame Melanchthon in a letter addressed to him, in which respect and affection are joined to a just severity.

282

The town of Magdeburg, then besieged by the army of the Elector Maurice, persisted in rejecting the Interim, and the theologians of that Church flooded Germany with pamphlets, in which Melanchthon was not spared. The Burghers of Magdeburg, put under the ban of the empire, sustained a long siege, and did not submit till the following year. – Sleidan, book xxii.

283

In a reply to Flacius Illyricus, who maintained that, rather than tolerate the restoration of the Popish ceremonies, he would plunder and destroy the Churches and stir up the people, – "vastitatem faciendam in templis, et metu seditionum terrendos principes." Melanchthon advocated immovable steadfastness in doctrine, submission in everything else. – "In ceremoniis tolerandam aliquam servitutem, quæ tamen sit sine impietate." – Melch. Adam. Vita Melanchthonis, p. 344. But was it possible to submit to the Church of Rome without deserting sound doctrine?

284

This letter is without date. We discover the date, however, in a letter of Calvin's to Valentin Pacaeus, a doctor of Leipsic, of 18th June 1550, where we meet with these words: – "I make no mention of M. Philip, as I am writing specially to himself." – Calv. Opera, tom. ix. p. 54.

285

See note 2, p. 175. M. de Falais lived during the summer in a country-seat, situated at Veigy, a small village of Savoy, a few leagues from Geneva.

286

On the opposite bank of the lake, where rises the delightful eminence of Chambesy, crowned at the present day with beautiful villas.

287

Paolo Vergerio, one of the missionaries of Reform in Swiss Italy. Born of an illustrious family of Istria, he had successively studied law and oratory, was made Bishop of Istria, and discharged the duties of Pope's legate in Germany. He became a convert to the Gospel through conversations with Melanchthon, abandoned his diocese, and retired among the Grisons. He died in 1565.

288

There is a beautiful letter from Bucer to Calvin, [Calvini Opera, tom. ix. p. 58,] dated from Cambridge, and containing curious details regarding the religious state of England. We find this passage in it relative to the young King Edward VI., – "Increase in prayer in behalf of the most serene King, who is making quite wonderful progress in pious and literary studies."

289

See the preceding letter.

290

We find no allusion to this fact in the Registers of the Council of that year. But Ruchat mentions, after Roset, the arrest of one Jean Baptiste Didaco, Receiver-General of Finance at Rouen, who, having been imprisoned at Geneva at the impeachment of one of his domestics, was released at the request of the King of France, and of the Bernese, after three months' imprisonment. – Ruchat, tom. v. pp. 311, 313.

291

The nature of this tax is not known; it was set on foot in the localities belonging to the ancient territory of the Chapter of Saint Victor, and shared between the jurisdiction of the two republics.

292

Commentarii in Iesaiam Prophetam. In fol. Geneva, 1550. A work dedicated to the King of England.

293

In omnes Pauli Epistolas atque etiam in Epistolam ad Hebraeos Commentarii. In fol. Geneva, 1550. With a preface by Theodore Beza.

294

The title: – To William Rabot, "Dictus a Salena" of Avignon.

295

The Treatise on Scandals, one of the most remarkable of Calvin's writings appeared this same year, with a beautiful dedication addressed by Calvin to Laurent de Normandie, his old and constant friend. It was published at first in Latin, under the following title: – De Scandalis quibus hodie plerique absterrentur, nonnulli etiam alienantur a pura Evangelii Doctrina. Geneva, 1550. This work was translated into French by Latern during the following year. It is to be found in tom. viii. of his Opera, and in the Recueil des Opuscules, p. 1145.

296

Henry II. of France, to gain the good-will of the cantons, pretended at that time to take a lively interest in the protection of Geneva, menaced by the Duke of Savoy and the Emperor of Germany. He even informed the magistrates of the republic regarding certain plots, real or imaginary, laid for its destruction. – Registers of the Council, 1549, 1550, passim.

297

The Emperor Charles V. published, at that time, his bloody edict against the Protestants, Lutherans, Zuinglians, and others, and seemed to be preparing himself for a general crusade against the Reformed Churches. – Sleidan, book xxii.

298

See note 3, p. 277.

299

This passage in the letter is addressed to Christopher Fabri, or Libertet, a colleague of Farel's at Neuchatel.

300

Calvin had stood godfather to one of the daughters of Libertet, whose wife he habitually called by the familiar name of my godmother.

301

Saddened by his exile, and tormented by a malady under which he sunk the year following, Bucer complained bitterly of being continually the object of an unjust suspicion to the theologians of Zurich, and of being neglected by his friends in Switzerland.

302

Two of the keenest adversaries of the Reformation in France.

303

See note 2, p. 283. Having left Strasbourg at the same time as Bucer and Fagius, John Utenhoven went to London, where he resided for many years before going to exercise the ministry in Poland. See his correspondence with Bullinger, (1549-1554,) Zurich Letters, first series, toms. i. and ii.

304

John Laski, (Joannes a Lasco,) a Polish nobleman devoted to the cause of the Reformation, who had preached successively in Poland, in Germany, and in England. In the reign of Edward VI. he rose to great favour in the latter country, and was appointed superintendent of the congregation of foreign Protestants in London. – Zurich Letters, first series, tom. i. p. 187.

305

"I am glad your Commentary on Isaiah, and also the Canonical Epistles, are designed for our king; and I do not doubt but that, even from your letter to him, very considerable benefit will accrue to the English king." – Utenhoven to Calvin. Paris MSS. Recueil Historique de France, tom. xix.

306

See Calvin's letter to the King of England, of January 1551.

307

Louis de Budé, Sieur de la Motte, brother of John de Budé, was particularly versed in Oriental languages, of which he was made professor at Geneva, a short time after his arrival in that town. He died in 1552. We have of his a Psautier traduit de l'Hebreu en Français. 8vo. Geneva, 1550.

308

The celebrated printer Robert Etienne, (Stephens,) a man of the purest reputation, who lived in an age which failed to recognize his genius, and which rewarded his labours with ingratitude. Having become odious to the clergy by his beautiful editions of the Bible, and by his desire for reform, and but ill protected by the King of France against the vexations of the Sorbonne, he resolved to quit his country and remove his presses to Geneva, whither the printer Crespin had already preceded him. He arrived there towards the end of the year 1550, with his son Henry, who afterwards shed a new lustre on the name of Stephens. He publicly embraced the cause of the Reformation, together with the members of his family, and honoured his adopted country by the publication of various works of antiquity, both sacred and profane. Made a burgess of Geneva in 1556, he lived in constant intimacy with Calvin and Beza, until his death in 1559. – Senebier, Hist. Litt., pp. 355, 356; Haag. France Protestante, Art. Estienne.

309

In allusion to a tolerably numerous party in France, who, on receiving the Gospel, believed they might remain united in external communion with the Romish Church, and escape persecution by an apparent adhesion to its dogmas.

310

After leaving Bâle, and his establishment at Geneva, (July 1548). This seigneur lived in the village of Veigy, situated several leagues from the city, between Hermance and Les Voirons.

311

In allusion to the misconduct of a servant of Monsieur de Falais.

312

We read in the MS. Chronicle of Michael Roset, lib. v. chap. 27, "By advice of the ministers, April 3, 1550, it was enacted, that an annual visitation be maintained from house to house, for the examination of men and women as to their faith, in order to discern between the ignorant, and hardened sinners, and true Christians, which in time has wrought great benefit."

313

See the notice, p. 249.

314

The plague, which had cut off Hedio, the pious minister at Strasbourg, made great ravages at Berne during the same year. It entered the houses of Wolfgang Musculus, and of John Haller, although they escaped themselves. A great number of the ministers of the Church of Berne sunk under the attacks of this awful scourge. – Ruchat, tom. v. p. 470. The Chronique of Haller, cited by Hottinger.

315

Ruchat, who reproduces this letter, (tom. v. p. 441,) considers that the name here suppressed is that of Pierre Kontzen, a minister of Berne, who presided, in 1538, at the Synod of Lausanne.

316

Always attentive to regulate by ordinances the different points of religious and ecclesiastical life, the Seigneurs of Berne had just published (Dec. 1550) new edicts more rigorous than those which had preceded them. These edicts were especially directed against the gross notions and certain customs of the Papists, which Berne punished by fine. Indulgent to the taking of oaths, of which the custom was generally disseminated among the Catholic population subject to their dominion, the Seigneurie seemed to reserve all their severity for the offence of not observing the feasts abolished at Geneva.

317

This abolition, which was at a later period to provoke such warm debates between Berne and Geneva, had been pronounced the 16th Nov. 1550.

318

Richard Le Fèvre, a native of Rouen, one of the martyrs of the Reformed Church of Lyons. Seized in that town in 1551, and condemned to death, he appealed thence to the Parliament of Paris, and was delivered in transitu by some unknown friends. Surprised, two years afterwards, at Grenoble, he was brought back to the dungeons of Lyons, saw his first sentence confirmed by the Parliament of Paris, and went cheerfully to the stake the 7th July 1551. He wrote on the 3d of May to Calvin, – "The present is to let you know, that I hope to go to keep Whitsuntide in the kingdom of heaven, and to be present at the marriage of the Son of God, … if I am not sooner called away by this good Lord and Master, whose voice i am ready to obey, when he shall say, Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you before the foundation of the world." – (The original autograph letter, Library of Geneva, Vol. 109.) During his first captivity at Lyons, Richard Le Fèvre had consulted Calvin on some points of doctrine, and had received pious exhortations from him regarding them.

319

In an assembly which met at Neuchatel on the 14th of March 1551, the number of individuals who should compose the Consistory was fixed, and a collection of regulations regarding marriage was drawn out.

320

The translation of the Psalms begun by Clement Marot, was continued by Theodore Boza, who obtained, during this same year, the authority of the Council of Geneva for the publication of a part of his work.

321

Edward VI., son of Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour, King of England, born in 1537, died, in his sixteenth year, the 8th of July 1553. Gifted with a precocious strength of reason, and a lively sensibility, instructed in the ancient languages and foreign literature, this young prince did not live long enough to realize the hopes to which his accession to the throne had given birth. "His virtues," says the historian Hume, "had made him an object of tender affection to the public. He possessed mildness of disposition, application to study and business, a capacity to learn and judge, and an attachment to equity and justice." Devotional reading had a particular attraction for this prince, who was heartily devoted to the cause of the Reformation. Calvin dedicated two of his commentaries to him: "Joannis Calvini Commentarii in Iesaiam Prophetam, Eduardo VI., Angliæ Regi, 8 Cal. Januarii 1551." "Joannis Calvini Commentarii in Epistolas Canonicas." The dedication of the first of these commentaries (25th December 1550) furnishes us the date of the letter of Calvin, written in the month of January 1551, and brought to the King by the minister, Nicolas des Gallars.

322

The privilege granted by King Edward VI. to the Church of the foreign Protestants instituted at London 1550. The royal patent was thus expressed: – "Considering that it is the duty of a Christian prince well to administer the affairs of his kingdom, to provide for religion, and for the unhappy exiles, afflicted and banished by reason thereof, we would have you to know, that having compassion of the condition of those who have for some considerable time past been domiciled in our kingdom, and come there daily, of our special grace … will and ordain that henceforward they may have in our city of London a church, to be called the Church of the Lord Jesus, where the assembly of the Germans and other strangers can meet and worship, for the purpose of having the Gospel purely interpreted by the ministers of their church, and the Sacraments administered according to the word of God and the apostolic ordinance."

323

The agreement concluded two years before, between the Churches of Geneva and of Zurich, on the question of the Sacraments, had been a source of joy to all the sober-minded in Switzerland and in Germany, who had deplored the excesses of the sacramental quarrel. But it displeased the intemperate Lutheran party, who accused Calvin of fickleness, and went so far as to charge him with having changed his opinions, and with squaring his doctrine to that of Zuingle, since the defeat of the Protestant party in Germany. This was nothing but a calumny, which is removed by a comparison of the previous writings of Calvin upon the Supper, with the formula drawn up under his care and which he was desirous should be published at Zurich. – Ruchat, tom. v. p. 379.

324

Some have erroneously fixed on 1549 as the date of this publication. Delayed by the theologians of Zurich it was only finished in 1551, under the title – Consensio mutua in re Sacramentaria ministrorum Tigurinæ Ecclesiæ et D. Joannis Calvini Ministri Genevensis Ecclesiæ. Zurich, 8vo. Caused by Calvin to be translated into French the following year, this important document figures in the Recueil des Opuscules, p. 1137, with a preface by Calvin to the Ministers and Doctors of the Church of Zurich.

325

Under this title, Bullinger had commenced publishing a series of discourses concerning the principal points of the Christian religion.

326

See the letter to the king, p. 299.

327

Having returned to England the previous year, and having been appointed Bishop of Gloucester through the patronage of Cranmer, Hooper was imprisoned and suffered a few days of captivity for having refused to wear, at the time of his consecration, the sacerdotal dress then in use in the English Church. See his correspondence with Bullinger, Zurich Letters, 1537-1558, tom. i. p. 9; Burnet, vol. i.

328

After having proscribed the Reformed worship in the town of Augsburg, the Emperor took up his quarters at Inspruck, among the valleys of the Tyrol, from which he could keep an eye at once upon the Council of Trent, Germany, and Italy. – Robertson, book x.

329

Bullinger had presented the King of England with his third and fourth Decade, (see note 1, p. 306,) with a long letter, in which he reminds the young king of the duties which he had to fulfil towards his subjects. "This epistle and book were presented to the King by the hands of Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, personally acquainted with Bullinger, to whom the King declared his good acceptance thereof, and the respect and esteem he had for the reverend author." – Strype, Memoir, vol. ii. pp. 390, 394.

330

The letter here referred to has escaped all our investigations, and appears to be entirely lost.

331

One of the first acts of the new Pope, Julius III, was to decree the re-assembly of the Council of Trent, on the 1st of May 1551. This session, termed the eleventh – eight having been held at Trent and two at Bologna – was without result. The fathers resolved upon fixing that there should not be another assembly until the 1st of September. – Fra Paolo, Hist. du Concile de Trente, lib. iv. sect. i.