Letters of John Calvin, Volume II

374

See the eloquent appeal addressed to Bullinger, ante, pp. 329, 341. The latter had written to Calvin, giving him an account of the fruitless efforts of the Cantons with Henry II., and of the haughty response of that monarch: "He lives who delivered his people from Egypt; he lives who brought back the captivity from Babylon; he lives who defended his Church against Cæsars, kings, and profligate princes. Verily we must needs pass through many afflictions into the kingdom of God. But woe to those who touch the apple of God's eye." – Calv. Opera, tom. ix. p. 68.

375

See the following Letter.

376

In the month of April 1552, five young Frenchmen, instructed at the school of theology of Lausanne, and devoted to the functions of the ministry, made arrangements for returning to their own country. These were Martial Alba of Montauban, Peter Ecrivain of Gascony, Charles Favre of Blanzac in Angoumois, Peter Navihères of Limousin, and Bernard Seguin of La Reole. After having spent some days at Geneva, they set out for Lyons, and met on the way at the Bourg de Colognes, nigh to L'Ecluse, a stranger, who offered himself as their fellow-traveller. They consented without harbouring any suspicion. Arrived at Lyons, they parted with their travelling companion, who pressed them to visit him at his dwelling of Ainay. They went thither without any distrust, were arrested and led away to the prisons of that jurisdiction. Such was the origin of a long and doleful process, which held the Churches of France and Switzerland for a long time in suspense, and during which, the blood-thirsty cruelty of the judges was only equalled by the constancy of the victims. On the first rumour of the arrest of the five students, the Church of Geneva took the matter up, and lavished upon the captives, by the voice of Calvin, the most lively testimonies of their sympathy.

377

Calvin wrote this letter to King Edward VI., when dedicating to him the following little work: Four Sermons of Master John Calvin, treating of matters very profitable for our time, with a Brief Exposition of Psalm lxxxvii. Geneva, 1552, in 8vo, inserted in the Recueil des Opuscules, p. 824. These four sermons have been translated at different times into English. In the first, Calvin exhorts the faithful to flee from idolatry; in the second, he encourages them to suffer everything for Jesus Christ; in the third, he shews how highly believers ought to prize the privilege of being in the Church of God, where they are at liberty to worship him purely; in the last, he shews that this liberty cannot be purchased at too high a price.

378

An error in the original; we must read 87th.

379

For a facsimile of the original of this passage, see Vol. I.

380

This letter bears no date, but it refers to the subject set forth in a preceding letter of Calvin's to Cranmer, p. 345, and we have no hesitation in assigning it a place in the course of the same year, – perhaps in July 1552.

381

A letter without address, but evidently, as the date and the contents prove, relating to the trial of the five students of Lausanne. – (See the letter of the 10th of June, and the note at p. 355.) The personage to whom Calvin writes, is doubtless John Liner, a rich merchant of Saint Gall, settled at Lyons, who often visited the scholars in their dungeon, undertook several journeys on their behalf, and was unsparing, during the whole course of the suit, in tokens of most lively affection. – (Histoire des Martyrs, liv. iv. pp. 230, 231.) John Liner afterwards retired to his own country, where he lived to a very advanced age, and corresponded with Charles de Jonvillers, the secretary of Calvin, a correspondence which has been preserved to our days in the library of Saint Gall. Note, p. 363.

382

To the brethren of … without any further indication. The name of the Polish nobleman, John A Lasco, moderator of the Congregation of Foreign Protestants at London, informs us to what Church this letter was addressed.

383

A Lasco had composed a work entitled, The whole Form and Manner of the Ecclesiastical Ministry in the Church of the Strangers, set up at London by the very faithful Prince, Edward VI.

384

On the back, in the handwriting of Calvin: "The case against Trolliet."

385

"Since we are all corrupt and contaminate by vice, it cannot be but God must hate us, and that not with tyrannical cruelty, but with reasonable equity… That all the children of Adam come forward to contend and dispute against their Creator, because by his eternal Providence, they were devoted, before they were born, to perpetual calamity. When, on the contrary, God brings them to know themselves, how can they murmur at that? If they have all been taken out of a corrupt mass, it is no way marvellous that they are liable to condemnation. Let them not therefore accuse God of iniquity, because by his eternal decree they are ordained to condemnation, to which their very nature makes them amenable." – Institution of the Christian Religion, edit, of 1554, p. 461.

386

"The first man fell, because God thought it fit. Now, as to why he thought it fit, we know nothing. Yet it is certain, that he has not thus decided, unless because he saw that it would advance the glory of his name… Man then falls, according as it has been ordained of God, but he falls by his own vice." – Ibid. edit, of 1551, p. 463.

387

This is the book: De Æterna Dei Prædestinatione et Providentia. Genève, 1550, in 8vo; translated into French the same year.

388

This is the famous book of the Common Places (Loci Theologici), translated into French under the care of Calvin: The Summe of Theology, or Common Places of Melanchthon, translated from the Latin, by John Calvin. With a Preface. 1546, in 8vo.

389

It is not uninteresting to compare this estimate formed by Calvin of Melanchthon, with the remarkable one contained in the preface to the Common Places: – "I perceive that the author, being a person of profound knowledge, has not chosen to enter into subtile disputations, nor to treat these matters with that high degree of skill which it would have been so easy for him to employ. But he has brought himself down as much as he could, having only regard to edification. It is, certes, the style and fashion which we should observe, did not our adversaries constrain us by their cavils to turn aside from this course… The same about predestination, because he sees now-a-days so many flighty spirits who are but too much given to curiosity, and who go beyond bounds in this matter. Wishing to provide against this danger, he has proposed to touch only on what was needful to be known, leaving all else buried out of sight, rather than by disclosing all he could, to give the reins to much perplexing and confused disputation, from whence arises no good fruit. I confess that the whole of what God has been pleased to reveal to us in Scripture ought not to be suppressed, whatsoever happens; but he who seeks to give profitable instruction to his readers, may very well be excused for dwelling upon what he knows to be most essential, passing lightly over or leaving out of sight that which he does not expect to be equally profitable."

390

Here is the sentence pronounced on this occasion by the Seigneurs of Geneva: —

391

While Calvin was eloquently pleading among others the cause of the persecuted faithful of France, he was struggling with an ever-increasing energy for the suppression of scandals, and the formation of a new people at Geneva. His efforts, however, seemed powerless before the enormity of the evil, and the furious resistance of that party, which history has justly branded with the name of Libertine. The cabal of the factious gathered strength from day to day, and disorders were committed with impunity. The task of reforming the public morals, courageously undertaken by the ministers, was almost absolutely fruitless. Ashamed of such excesses, but incapable of suppressing them, the Great Council increased the severity of its edicts, but had not the power to impose them upon the multitude who were banded together against the foreigners. The French were a particular object of fury to the factions. They beat them in the streets, and subjected them to all sorts of outrages. Most absurd accusations were circulated against them, and were believed by the multitude. The presence of Farel and Viret in Geneva could not quiet these troubles; and it was in vain that these courageous ministers presented themselves before the councils, "to commend to them the care of religion and morals." – Chronique of Roset, c. v. pp. 42, 44; Ruchat, c. v. pp. 489, 490.

392

Probably Amy Perrin.

393

Placed by his character and talents at the head of the Vaudois clergy, Viret had to maintain a ceaseless struggle against the encroachments and ecclesiastical tyranny of the Seigneurs of Berne. – See Ruchat, c. v. p. 488.

394

Minister of the French Church of Strasbourg.

395

Quatre Sermons traictans des matières fort utiles pour nostre temps. 1552, 8vo. Opuscules, p. 824.

396

Beza published this year a new edition of his Tragedy of Abraham under the following title: – Le Sacrifice d'Abraham, Tragédie Française, séparée en trois Pauses à la façon des Actes de Comédies, avec des Chœurs, un Prologue et un Epilogue. 1552, 8vo.

397

Ambroise Blaurer, of a noble family of Constance, entered in early youth a convent, which he soon left to become a preacher of reform, for which he had contracted a taste from reading the writings of Luther. Present at the Controversy of Berne with Zwingle, Œeolampadius, Bucer, and Capito, he beheld his preaching attended with the most gratifying success, and saw the Gospel victoriously established in his native town, where he exercised his valuable ministry until the war of Smalkald. Having at that time refused submission to the Interim, he left Constance, and retired first to Winterthur, near Zurich, and afterwards to Bienne, whilst his unfortunate city, fallen into the hands of the Imperialists, saw itself deprived at once of the Gospel and of liberty. Esteemed by Calvin, Blaurer witnessed his influence at Zurich and at Berne solicited more than once by the Reformer of Geneva. He died in 1567. – See Beza, Icones, and Melch. Adam, Theolog. Germ., p. 413.

398

In a letter to an unknown personage, (Opera, tom. ix. p. 238,) Calvin mentions this same event, adding to it a curious detail taken from the letter of an eye-witness: "Among other things, he informed me of a circumstance which I am unwilling to withhold from you – that a striking spectacle presented itself to him in the destruction of our city, viz., that my father's house stood entire after all the others had been reduced to ashes." Farther on he adds, – "I have no doubt but that God wishes to make this a testimony against all those of our city who, eight or ten days before, had burnt in effigy Monsieur de Normandie."

399

Commentarius in Evangelium Johannis. Geneva, 1553. Fol. Robert Estienne.

400

See Letter, p. 270. Doubly afflicted by the wars which were desolating Germany, and by the disorders which were rending the Church, Melanchthon had maintained a long silence, which was only broken on the 1st October 1552, by a touching letter to Calvin: – "Reverend sir and very dear brother, – I should have written you frequently, had I been able to secure trustworthy letter-carriers. I should have preferred a conversation with you on many questions of very serious interest, inasmuch as I set a very high value on your judgment, and am conscious that the integrity and candour of your mind is unexceptionable. I am at present living as if in a wasps' nest. But perhaps I shall ere long put off this mortal life for a brighter companionship in heaven." Full of affection and respect for Melanchthon, whose character he venerated, while he freely blamed him for his weakness and indecision, Calvin made known, in turn, to the German Reformer, the struggles of all sorts which he had to undergo at Geneva, and with which the name of Melanchthon himself is found mixed up, owing to the astute intrigues of the Libertines, who had an interest in involving these two great men in mutual opposition.

401

The same fact is related in a letter of Calvin to Dryander in the following terms: "After that monk let loose against us from the service of M. de Falais had been condemned, a plot having been clandestinely hatched, a noisy fellow was found who, not only at table in private families, but up and down the taverns, kept constantly bawling, that we made God the author of sin, and otherwise traduced our ministry in the most insulting manner possible. When I saw that these evenomed words were spread about everywhere, by means of which profligate men were intriguing, by no means covertly, to overthrow the whole kingdom of Christ in this city, I mildly admonished the people to be on their guard against them. I also pointed out to the Senate how dangerous dilatory measures were in such dissensions. Those who had suborned him to molest me, by their intrigues so protracted the cause, that I was kept in suspense upwards of three months. For among the judges there were several who favoured the adverse party. But among many injuries, there was nothing I felt more keenly and bitterly than that this affair forced me into a hateful contest with M. Philip, with whom, however, I broke in such a manner that I never spoke of so great a man except in honourable terms." – Library of Geneva. Vol. 107, a.

402

We can judge of this from the remarkable memorial of Calvin to the Seigneurie, entitled La Cause contre Trolliet, where we meet with these words: – "That party, Noble Seigneurs, which is desirous of bringing Melanchthon and myself into mutual conflict, is doing great wrong to both of us, and in general to the whole Church of God. I honour Melanchthon as much for his superior learning as for his virtues, and above all, for having laboured so faithfully to uphold the Gospel. If I find fault with him, I do not conceal it from him, seeing that he gives me liberty to do so. There are witnesses in abundance on his side, who know how much he loves me. And I know that he will hold in detestation all those who, under cover of his name, seek to blacken my doctrine." – 6th Oct. 1552. (Library of Geneva, vol. 145.) Calvin's preface to Melanchthon's Common Places may also be consulted. Geneva, 1546, 8vo.

403

No date. Written evidently about the end of 1552. This letter, the last which Calvin wrote to M. de Falais, throws a great light on the circumstances of their rupture, of which Jerome Bolsec's process was the occasion. Banished from Geneva for his attacks on the doctrine of predestination and his invectives against Calvin, Bolsec had found means to interest in his cause M. de Falais, whose physician he was, and who interceded to no purpose for him with his judges: "Master Jerome is better acquainted with my constitution and what affords me relief than any other doctor that I know… It is to him after God that I am indebted for my life." – Archives of Geneva. Letters of the 9th and 11th November 1551. These steps undertaken from a feeling of humanity, would certainly not have indisposed Calvin, if M. de Falais had not too openly taken part with Bolsec against the Reformer. Calvin bitterly complained of it, "that M. de Falais should write that he (Bolsec) was not a bad man, and for the sake of an obscure wretch should hold up his reputation as a subject of mockery." Letter to the ministers of Bâle, January 1552. Expelled from Geneva and settled at Thonon, Bolsec contrived to envenom this difference which the recollections of a long friendship should have appeased, and which terminated in a painful rupture. In a vehement letter, Calvin, at that time suffering from bad health, took leave of his old friend, whose name he erased four years afterwards from the preface to his Commentary on the first Epistle to the Corinthians, in order to substitute in its place that of the Marquis de Vico.

404

See vol. i. pp. 403, 409. Settled at Bâle, Castalio had just published his Latin version of the Holy Scriptures, which being judged with excessive severity by the Reformed Divines, drew on him numerous enmities. – Bibla Sacra Latina, Basil, 1551.

405

The history of M. de Falais, after his rupture with Calvin, is enveloped in much obscurity. He left Geneva in order to settle at Berne, lost his wife in 1557, and contracted a second marriage. We know neither the date nor the place of his death. Is it true, as Bayle affirms, that this seigneur, chagrined by the spectacle of the divisions which he had witnessed at Geneva, at last returned to the Catholic church? We are rather inclined to believe, from the testimonies of Calvin and Beza, indirectly confirmed by the silence of the Brabançon historians, that, though differing on some points of Calvinistic theology, the great-grand-son of Philip of Burgundy did not abjure the tenets for which he had sacrificed his fortune and his country. See Bayle, Dict., Art. Philip of Burgundy, remark G; Calvin, Comment. on the 1st Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, dedication to the Marquis of Vico, 24th January 1556; and the preface of Beza to the Commentary on Joshua.

406

Mathieu Dimonet, a devout Protestant of Lyons, was arrested in that town the 9th January 1553. In his letters to the ministers of Geneva he has himself related the details of his trial: – "On Monday 9 January being in my house in presence of the king's lieutenant and the official, who, after they had searched and visited my books, found nothing, except a little book of spiritual songs set to music…" Dimonet underwent a first examination, and was then led away to the prison of the officialty. "I have undergone," says he, "great assaults and temptations … for on the one side, they set before me tortures and death, then the shame and dishonour of myself and my relations, the sorrow of my mother, who they said was dying with grief and many other things … which would have been very hard for me to bear, unless the Lord had strengthened me by his Holy Spirit." The prisoner courageously withstood the threats of the inquisitor Oritz, and the pressing entreaties of his family. The 15th July 1553, quite cheerfully, and praying to the Lord, he endured the torment of death. – Histoire des Martyrs, p. 247.

407

Peter Berger of Bar-sur-Seine, burgess of Geneva, was seized at Lyons three days after the scholars of Lausanne, whom he rejoined in the dungeons and preceded to martyrdom. "Having mounted the stake, he said, 'Lord, I commit my soul to thee.' Then looking up to heaven with steadfast gaze, and crying aloud, he said, 'To-day I see heaven open;' and immediately after, this saint yielded up his spirit to God." – Histoire des Martyrs, p. 234.

408

Christopher Fabri [or Libertet] was on the eve of his second marriage. We know nothing of his first wife. In a letter of May 1545, to Fabri, then pastor at Thonon, Calvin speaks highly of the entertainment he received from his wife, on his return from a long tour in the German Cantons: "I could never get your wife to treat us in a plain, homely way… She was willing to take advice. She repeatedly requested that I should ask for whatever I chose, as if it were my own; she adhered to her own opinion in this, however, that she entertained us too sumptuously; for there was twice as much food always prepared as there was any occasion for. We felt just as much at home as if you had been present." – MS. of the Library of Neuchatel.

409

In allusion to the efforts of the Libertine party, put forth with increasing violence for the overthrow of ecclesiastical discipline, and which gave rise during the same year to a decisive struggle between the Reformer and his adversaries.

410

A village on the banks of the Arve, a few miles from Geneva.

411

John Macard, originally from the neighbourhood of Laon in Picardy, took refuge in Geneva on account of religion. A man of resolute character, and endowed with a manly eloquence, he rendered eminent service to the Church alternately at Geneva and Paris, and the latter reckoned him among the number of its most distinguished pastors.

412

The minister, Philip de Ecclesia, deposed on account of his disorderly life.

413

John Cheke, preceptor of Edward VI., King of England, and distinguished alike in science and in letters, won the esteem and confidence of his royal pupil, who raised him to the rank of knighthood, and who gave him in many ways the most precious testimonies of his affection. – See Fuller's Church History, B. vii.; sixteenth cent., 19, 20. Though a man of sincere piety, Cheke was not possessed of a firmness of character equal to the variety of his knowledge and the greatness of his talents. He survived his pupil only to make a deplorable manifestation of the infirmity of his faith under fear of the scaffold and of martyrdom. Arrested in the Low Countries in 1556, by a secret order of Philip II., he was conducted to London, imprisoned in the Tower, and escaped death only by a solemn retractation. He then fell into a profound melancholy, and soon after died, exhibiting sentiments of sincere repentance, asking pardon of God and men for the sin of which he had been guilty. See Strype, Memoirs, III., i. 515, and Zurich Letters, first series, passim

414

Declared guilty of the crime of heresy, and delivered over to the secular arm by the Judge Ordinary of Lyons, the five students made their appeal to the Parliament of Paris, while the authorities of Berne strove in vain to save "leurs escholiers." Transferred from dungeon to dungeon, during a trial which lasted for more than a year, brought back at last from Paris to Lyons, to await the sentence of their judges, the constancy of these young men never faltered for a single day. At length, the 1st March 1553, they received the communication of the decree of the Parliament of Paris, which gave them over to the stake. – Hist. des Martyrs, lib. iv., p. 230. That melancholy intelligence soon spread around, and brought mourning to Lausanne and to Geneva.

415

This was the pious merchant, John Liner, of Saint Gall. – See the Letter of the 10th August, p. 358. He was present with the prisoners at the bar of Roanne when they received their sentence of death. He set out immediately for Berne, in order to try a last application on the part of the seigneury of that town to the King of France. – Hist. des Martyrs, pp. 230, 231. Various MSS. of the library of St. Gall.

416

The inquisitor, Nicolas Oritz, who presided at the trial of the five students. The paper here mentioned still exists in the library of Geneva, 113, with this title: – "Copy of a paper of the Inquisitor Houriz, given to the prisoners for the Word at Lyons, to be conveyed to M. Calvin to retain."

417

This gentleman, whose name is not known, corresponded by letter with Calvin, his countryman and friend. Shortly before his arrest he wrote to Calvin on the subject of a fire, which had almost entirely destroyed the town of Noyon, sparing, however, the house of the Reformer: "I have no doubt," said he, "that God has left this testimony against those of your town, who eight or ten days before had burnt in effigy Monsieur de Normandie and the rest." – Latin Letter of Calvin of 15th February 1553.