tihravy of t:He t: heolocjical ^tminavy PRIKCETON . NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY Professor Samuel Miller BX 9869 .S4 R5 1846 c.l Rilliet, Albert, 1809-1883. Calvin and Servetus CALVIN AND SERVETUS. Albert l\Mi\dl CALVIN AND SERVETUS: THE REFORMER'S SHARE IN THE TRIAL OF MICHAEL SERVETUS HISTORICALLY ASCERTAINED. FROM THE FRENCH: WITH NOTES AND ADDITIONS. BY THB REV. W. K. TWEEDIE. EDINBURGH : JOHN JOHNSTONE, 15, PRINCES STREET. LONDON: R. GROOMBRIDGE & SONS. MDCCCXLVI. Edinburgh, Printed by J. Johnstone, 104, High Street. CONTENTS. rAGB vii. Preface, ' • Chap. I. Sketch of the Life of Calvin, . 1-61 « II. Sketch of the Life of Servetus, . 62-71 « III. Servetus at Geneva — State of Par- ties there, 72-8-1 H IV. Arrestment of Servetus — First Ju di- ciAL Proceedings against Him, 85-121 „ V. The Council of Geneva becomes the Prosecutor of Servetus, . 122-158 „ VI. "Written Discussion between Serve- tus AND Calvin — Debates upon Ex- communication BETWEEN the RE- FORMER AND THE Council, . . 159-186 H VII. The Council consults the Swiss Churches — Their Replies — The Sentence and Death op Servetus, 187-227 Appendix, 229-245 PEEFiCE. Perhaps no criminal trial ever gave occasion to such^ acrimonious censures as that of Michael Servetus. Men of every rank, and every variety of opinion, have long united in condemning the transaction ; and perhaps more has been argued or declaimed upon this single topic than upon all the hecatombs of vic- tims offered by the persecuting spirit of Popery.* Yet, after all, much ignorance still prevails regard- ing the true history and character of the trial. De la Roche in the beginning of the last century, J. L. de Mosheim and Alwoerden about the middle of it, Sennebier towards its close, M. Fleury in 1835, M. Trechsel of Berne in 1839, M. de YalajTe in 1842, as well as many others, have professed to give lives of Servetus, or narratives of his trial. Some of these * The last of these philippics which we hare noticed was pro- nounced by Lord Brougham. But surely a charge from such a quarter cannot be deemed important, at least as regards consis- tency. His lordship reckons man not accountable for his belief. Calvin held certain beliefs, and held them honestly, conscien- tiously, and at all hazards ; why, then, assail him for convictions involving no responsibility ? VIU PREFACE. I .< were dictated by avowed hostility to Calviii, or anti- pathy to the theological opinions which he embraced and advocated, while all of them were imperfect, be- cause the documentary evidence which the authors had before them was not complete. But in the course of 1844, M. A. Rilliet of Geneva published there a brochure upon the subject,""' in which he has, with great painstaking and impartiality, concentrated the light of history, made yet more clear by that of docu- ments hitherto unexamined or unpublished. The Registers of the City of Geneva were long supposed to be lost. More recently, however, they have been discovered to be still extant; and Rilliet has availed himself of all that they contain to place the trial of Servetus in its true, that is, its historical, light, di- vested at once of the exaggerations of ignorance and the bitterness of partisanship. Without sanctioning every sentiment of Rilliet, it is, perhaps, not too much to say, that the world now knows all that ever can be known concerning the trial of Servetus, till the day Avhen the secrets of all hearts shall be laid bare. The impartial student of history has now an opportunity of ascertaining, from unquestionable and authentic sources, all the circum- stances connected v^^th that humbling event. The archives of Geneva have been ransacked, and their contents analyzed. The letters of contemporaries, printed and in MS., have been examined. The parties * Its title is, " Relation du Proces Criminel Intente a Geneve, en 1553, coutre Michel Servet, redigee d'apres les Documents Originaux, par Albert Rilliet." PREFACE. IX which then contended for power in Geneva — its ancient forms of justice — its magistrates and ministers — the very documents employed in the trial, as they were written out while it was in progress — the Re- formed Churches of S^vitzerland, and other bodies, both friendly and hostile to the Reformation, have all been cited by Rilliet to give evidence on this long con- tested topic; and, -svith rather a leaning to Servetus, he has brought into a short compass all that can, perhaps, ever be ascertained regarding this memorable trial on this side the judgment-day. The follo^ving pages contain, among other things, a translation of Rilliet's work, most strictly and hte- rally faithful to all the facts which he has brought to light. It at one time appeared that an abstract of his narrative might have sufficed; but that there might be no bias, and no unconscious warping of facts, it has been reckoned best to lay before our readers a translation of the whole of Rilliet's investigations and views. For the first chapter, and the Notes marked Tr., the translator is responsible; and the whole is now submitted to the friends of religion in the hope that an accurate judgment may at last be formed of Calvin's share in this mournful process. And what was his share ? That he held the opinion that heretics might be punished by the sword is certain. In common with nearly all the men of his generation, the great French Reformer believed that the Word of God was something so fixed and definite, that its meaning might be infal- L X PREFACE. libly ascertained, and that to depart from that mean- ing so as to endanger the souls of men by teaching a lie, was a crime even gi'eater than violating human laws. Looking at the abstract and absolute truth, rather than viewing: it in connection with man's varied mind, the Reformers assumed that they pos- sessed the power, first, to discover Avith certainty the mind of God in Scripture; and, secondly, of checking heresy by imprisonment or death, when argument failed to convince the heretic. Hence the trial of Servetus, and of all who suffered like him at the hands of the Reformers. They reckoned the civil magistrate as much bound to defend the first as the second table of the Decaloo-ue — to vindicate the rigjhts of God against blasphemy, as well as the rights of man against injustice; and this formed the basis of their opinions and practices on the subject. The following narrative will show that so prevalent or universal were the sentiments just referred to,\ dur- ing the age in which the trial took place, that men of all shades of opinion held them — they held them as first principles not to be questioned, and would have deplored as a neglect w^hat we now lament as a perpetration. Not merely the Church of Rome, wdiich has sometimes made persecution a science, but the Churches of the Reformation, as if one mind animated them all, adopted the principle, and acted on it. Both the maoistrates and ministers of Berne were unhesitating and decided in favour of condemning Servetus. The same is true of Zurich, of Schafi- hausen, and Bale. Not merely the firm unbending PREFACE. 11 Calvin, but the mild and gentle, and too com- promising ]\Ielancthon, favoured the verdict. The zealous Fare!, and the temperate Bullinger, nay, even Servetus himself, sanctioned the maxim, which it would then have been heresy to question. In short, it formed part of the religion of the Reformed States, that heretics deserved to die. Their most sagacious men saw nothinsr inconoruous or unchristian in these opinions. They felt the full value of God's truth, and were inclined to uphold it at every hazard — by their own death, or that of others. This may not vindicate the transaction w^hose various stages are now to be described, but it ex- plains it. Men who dislike the French Reformer, because they do not know his character, and others, because the form of truth which he taught offends them, have piled obloquy on Cah-in's memory, for his share in this affair — he is thought of by thousands only as the truculent and relentless murderer of Ser- vetus. The narrative now submitted might terminate all such prejudices. It will be seen that what he did ^ was not merely in perfect unison with the spirit of the age in which he lived, but in compliance with the> laws of his adopted country. If condemned, there- fore, it must be rather because he lived in the six- teenth century, than as causing the death of Ser- vetus ; for, we repeat, it was the age, and not Calvin, that occasioned his condemnation. Rilliet has de- scribed the whole in one of his antithetic sentences: " Devant nos consciences cet arret est odieux; il fiit juste devant la loi." Xll PREFACE. Indeed, so much was this the case, that Geneva was congratulated by more than one Reformer, on the happy privilege which it enjoyed in ridding the world of Servetus. There was an actual rivalry and com- petition between the Reformed and Popish Chm-ches in the matter, though the Reformer s clemency sought a commutation of the punishment into one less severe than burninof.* Besides, in estimating the moral character of this painful transaction, we are not merely to keep in view the spirit and the principles of the age — we are, more- over, to bear in mind the political influences which helped to hasten the death of Servetus. He sought to connect himself with a party in Geneva who were then struggling for a power that was dangerous to the commonwealth, or subversive of its edicts and laws. They would fain have employed him as an instrument for promoting their own ends, by embroiling the Re- former, who opposed their licentiousness. They were baffled ; and Servetus was more or less their political victim. On his trial, he was bold or timid, perhaps we might say he was insolent or humble, according as he supposed his partisans in the State to be suc- cessful or discomfited. This developed passions which should never have entered into an inquest so solemn, and explains, though it does not excuse, the mournful termination of the trial, which made Servetus a martyr or a hero in the view of some — an obstinate and un- principled heretic in the opinion of others. * Coleridge has Bomewhere said, that " if any poor fanatic ever thrust himself into the flames, that man was Servetus." • • • PREFACE. Xlll And this is made apparent by the fact, that when^, Servetus was at last condemned, it was from political rather than religious considerations. Calvin was set aside. He was not consulted. Nay, contrary to his wuhes, the Reformed Governments were asked to counsel Geneva in the affair. Being thus constituted a jury, their verdict was unanimous ; and Geneva would have outraged the whole of Reformed Switzer- land, had it ventured to pronounce Servetus innocent, or even foimd him guilty of only a venial offence, after both the Churches and the States had virtually condemned him. It is, therefore, historically imtrue that Calvin was the cause of the unhappy man's death. Had the other Churches not condemned him, Servetus would have been dismissed acquitted. Would men look dispassionately at these truths, now historically laid before them, all the parties in this melancholy transaction would receive what is their due, whether of censure or of praise ; especially w^ould Calvin be freed from the load of infamy under which his memory lies, as if he had been the sole instigator of the trial — the personal enemy, or the heartless per- secutor of Servetus. It is because we think that the following narrative is calculated to lead to this result that we invite attention to it — conscious that the im- partial inquirer will arrive at the conclusion, that when Calvin had once agreed \vith his age in holding the opinion that heretics were to be punished by the civil magistrate, all that he did in the trial of Servetus was the natural result of his principle, while it was constitutionally incumbent on him as a minister of XIV PREFACE. Geneva. He behoved either to repress the threaten ing and subversive heresy or abandon his post. But this is not the place in which to enter on any details regarding the character of the great French Reformer. He had not advanced so far before his age as to discern the force or application of some prin- ciples now held to be axioms ; but that is only saying that he hved three hundred years ago, when Europe was but emerging from the bondage and the blindness of Popery. And if he still bore some scars of the yoke — if his noble mind did not all at once embrace the whole range of Christian principle — if his soul, which clung to what it reckoned the truth with the force of passion, was not all at once unfettered — who that knows what man is will marvel?'^ The more that his character is studied, the more that his ardent affection is kno^\Ti, the more that his devotedness to the simple truth of God is understood, and the more that we learn of that fihal affection with which his friends clung to Calvin as their father, the less, in one point of view, will we regard, the more, in another, deplore, the oblocjuy of the world against him. One of his titles among his friends was a blessed one — he was called EioTivoToir.rtjs ; and while he has himself confessed that " a certain severe lenity" ever influenced him, * Dr Whately lias explained this matter in a single sentence : " A man of the most humane and benevolent character may be led by a mistaken sense of duty, arising from error of judgment, to Eanction the m.ost dreadful severities, -which he regards as the only efiectual check to a greater evil, such as he thinks himself bound to repress at all events," — Errors of Romanism, 3d Edi- tion, p. '254. PREFACE. XT devoted attachment to what he reckoned the truth was his predominant characteristic — the cause of his greatness, the occasion of his errors. But his own words to Perrin contain the real elements of his character: " Quis sim," he sajs, " aut ipse scis, aut scire saltern debes, is, nempe, cui ita corde sit jus c'jslestis heri,.ut ab illo recta conscientia asserendo nid- lius mortalis causa dimovendus sim." This sentence is a key to Calvin's mind. We only add, that the outline of Calvin's History, con- tained in the first chapter, is a very meagre sketch or ab- stract of a life prepared now many years ago. It is well known that " a great and venerable name" — the late Dr M'Crie — contemplated such a work, when he waa called away to the world where the good are " for ever with the Lord." The inlieritor of his name — the Rev. Thomas M'Crie — is now employed upon the work, and will, no doubt, do justice to one of the greatest of the sons of men. It is not creditable to Scotland, so much indebted to Calvin and Geneva, that we have no native life of the French Reformer worth v of his name. Gratitude combines with admiration to call on us to fill up the blank. W. K. T. Edinburgh, J/ay, 1846. CALYIN AND SEEVETUS. CHAPTJER I. LIFE OF CALVIN. The sixteenth century of the Christian era, like that in which we live, opened amid commotions which convulsed society to its centre. Causes long in silent operation then hastened to consummate their effects; and a combination of circumstances, unequalled since the days of the apostles, tended to promote the eman- cipation of mind, and advance the great ends for which the Gospel of Christ was given by God to man. One of the periodic throes to which the world seems destined had come on, and a thousand premonitions told that some mighty events were at hand. Amid these struggles, in which errors, grown vene- rable by their long duration, were to be assailed and overthrown, and higher and purer principles develop- ed, there appeared in different quarters of Europe men of mighty minds, gifted by God for their era, and prepared for all that their troubled age called on them 2 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. either to endure or to do. Q^colampadius at one place, Bucer at another, Melancthon at another, Farel and Viret at others — Knox in Scotland, Zuingle and Bul- linger at Zurich^ Haller at Berne, and Luther every- where, co-operated in restoring the Gospel to sinners, and pouring into their hearts the message brought from heaven to earth by Him whose " words are spirit and life." Men were thus taught that he who was blindly reckoned the " Rector of the Church universal," and impiously styled the " Head of the Republic of God," was but a frail and an erring mortal ; that the system over which he presided was a vast mass of corrup- tions piled above the simple truth as it is in Jesus, to bury it, if possible, in oblivion ; and that the real wel- fare of the nations was identified with the dethron- ing of the Man of Sin — the abolition of the system which, as the mystery of iniquity, is stamped with the curse of Almighty God. In forwarding this blessed work, none stood more signally forward, or acted a more conspicuous part, than the French Reformer, Calvin; and we would now lay before our readers a short, and necessarily a super- ficial, sketch of his eventful life, before entering on the details connected with the trial of Michael Servetus. John Calvin was born at Noyon in Picardy, on the 10th of July 1509. His parents were Gerard Chauvin, who, among other offices, held those of procurator of the chapter, and procurator-fiscal of the county, of Noyon, and Joanna Franc, who was reckoned one of the most beautiful women of her time. LIFE OF CALVIN. 3 Though the Reformer, who was the second son, owed little to the influence of birth, his father's activity, and his connection with some families of rank, in some degree facilitated young Calvin's entering upon life with prospects of worldly success. Florimond de Remond gravely says : " The honour of the Pontificate was promised to him at his birth." We learn from Beza that John had four brothers,* though it is difficult, amid conflicting accounts, to ar- rive at very accurate information regarding the family of Gerard. He himself died in the Popish communion, but more than one of his sons were happily induced to abjure it. Charles, the eldest, who died before Calvin, was suspected of heresy, refused to receive the sacrament of extreme unction prior to his death, and was, in consequence, ignominiously buried beneath the gibbet of Noyon, as one who had denied the faith ! The registers of that city are said to testify that Mary, one of the daughters, also died an heretic- — that is, she had listened to the voice of God, and abandoned the corruptions of Rome; and we shall subsequently find that Anthony, the third son, embraced the Reforma- tion, and cast in his lot with his illustrious brother at Geneva. Gerard Chauvin, whose surname his son afterwards changed into that of Calvin, had some reputation for abilities, and appears to have possessed a moderate competency — the fruits of industry rather than in- heritance. He bestowed a liberal education upon his * Another account says three ; another, three brothers and two sisters. 4 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. son, whose studies began at the College of Capettes, in Noyon; and about the commencement of his four- teenth year (1523) he was sent to Paris, to enjoy the benefits of the capital, along with the sons of the house of Mommors, then reckoned among the most distinguished in Picardy. In Paris, Calvin prosecuted his studies first at the College of La Marche, under the direction of Maturin Cordier, the well known Corderius of our Latin schools, a teacher of eminence, and ultimately a friend of the Reformed cause. The youth was subsequently re- moved to the College of Montagu; and even at this early age, he is said to have read some of the works of Luther, though he continued in the worse than Egyptian bondage of Popery for several years subse- quent to that period. He passed rapidly through the different departments of study, ascending from college to college so fast as far to outstrip his fellows; thus early evincing the vigour of his understanding and the remarkable tenacity of his memory. Gerard Chauvin had destined his son, from his infancv, to the Church, and his decision received a sanction from young Calvin's early habits. Even in boyhood, he displayed that unwavering uprightness which characterized him through life. He himself records that, as a Papist, he was unbending and austere at once in the tenets which he held and the spirit in which he enforced them. Free in his own conduct from the excesses too common in youth, he was a stern accuser of vice in others, and verified to the letter the Italian proverb: The man is a continuation of the LIFE OF CALVIN. 5 child.* His habits were retiring and reserved, indi- cating timidity rather than presaging the boldness which afterwards characterized him. Like many deeply meditative minds, the ordinary sports of youth had few attractions for him. Study was his employ- ment, while yet it appeared to be his amusement rather than his task. Before John Calvin was twelve years of age, his father had interest to procure his appointment as a chaplain in the Cathedral of Noyon. The solemn absurdity of such a nomination was completed by the bishop performing the ceremony of the tonsure on the boy, thus fitting him for the sacred office, and for holding cures without knowing their meaning, far less being able to fill them. In 1527, he obtained the curacy of Marteville, which he exchanged two years thereafter for that of Pont I'Eveque, the native place of his father. He zealously preached to the people of his cure; and though not regularly ordained as a priest, he perhaps performed some of the func- tions of that office. While he was thus passing from cure to cure, there is reason to believe that his mind had already begun, at least, to be startled by the truths which were then in rapid circulation; for his was not a soul which could contemplate without interest or emotion the new principles and stirring events of his times. This much is certain, on the authority of Desmay, that, * Indeed this passed into a proverb among his companions, and he was often taunted with the saying : " John can decline as far as the accusatite.'''' b CALVIN AND SERVETUS. in 1526, he was declared contumacious by the Chap- ter of Noyon, on account of his residence at Paris, and his long delay in returning to his duties. The heavings of the Reformation were then agitating both the capi- tal and the provinces; and there is reason to believe that, even at this early period, Calvin had begun to study with some attention what was not then cordially received, though it ultimately influenced his mind so as to turn it from error and corruption to the truth. The tires of persecution which then blazed in Paris could not but prompt such a mind to think and in- quire; and honest inquiry has ever been fatal to the pretensions of Rome. JiMeanwhile his original destination, as to the pro- fession which he should follow, was altered. Gerard Chauvin, perceiving that the study of law opened a more promising road to wealth than the Church, resolved that his son should become a lawyer, and not a divine, and Calvin submitted to be " dragged" from his favourite study in obedience to his father's desire. It is worthy of remark, that John Calvin and Michael Servetus, who were subsequently placed in such keen opposition, were each, at the bidding of paternal authority, induced for a time to abandon the study of theology for that of law. But He who had work for the Reformer in his Church, in providence prevented Calvin's attention from being wholly turned from theology; and his kinsman, Pierre Robert Olivetan, was the instrument employed for that purpose. The Revelation of God was studied by them perhaps even more than the laws LIFE OF CALVIN. 7 of men, and the result of their united labours was the publication of a French translation of the Scriptures at a period subsequent to that to which we now refer (1535). Calvin furnished the preface, vindicating the propriety of multiplying such publications, and re- futing some of the Romanists' favourite dogmas.* He was gradually, and perhaps unconsciously, pre- paring now for adopting views and a profession in which the messenger of peace too often endured a soldier's hardships and found a soldier's sepulchre. Calvin continued, however, for some time longer, to prosecute the study of law. At Orleans he heard the lectures of a learned jurisconsult, Pierre I'Etoile; t and it is said that while there he frequently discharged the duties of professor. He w^as offered an honorary doctorate by an unanimous vote of the Senate; and even the rancorous hatred of Audin:|: against Calvin has been compelled to confess, that at Orleans he was the delight of the professors — assiduous, docile, and full of ardour. § * D'Israeli (Curios, of Literal.) incorrectly says : " The Olivetan Bible was the first translation published by the Protestants, and there seems no doubt that Calvin was the chief, if not the only trans- lator." We do not quote the prejudiced remarks of D"'Israeli re- garding Calvin's religious views. •f- Peter Stella, president of the Parliament of Paris. + This is the name of one who has written a book entitled Vie de Calvin, as a Popish antidote to D'Aubigne's History of the Refor- mation. The language of truth and soberness applied to that per- formance would seem severe; yet even this age of scurrilous writing has produced little that is so false as Audin's work. He gives a full account of Gerard Chau^^n''s descendants. § It appears that his studies in law had already made him well known- So early as 1530, when CalTzn was only twenty-one years 8 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. But sacred literature began at length more and more to engross the mind of Calvin ; and though he did not yet abandon the study of law, he pursued it with grow- ing indifference. At the same time, he was gradually becoming the centre of attraction to many who had begun earnestly to desire for the knowledge of purer doctrines than those which had for ages prevailed; and though he ever courted retirement, it soon became apparent that he was one of those who could not be concealed — he belonged to an order of men on whom others instinctively lean, because their wisdom and their strength render them guides adapted to great emergencies and stirring times. His places of re- tirement, he says, "were like public schools;" and this we may readily believe concerning one w^ho was pronounced the most learned man in Europe when only in his twenty-second year. It was evident that He who holds in his hands the hearts of all men, was now leading Calvin by ways that he did not know, and training him for the conspicuous sphere which he occupied among the illustrious men, and in the blessed emancipation, of the sixteenth century. Like Joseph, " the Lord was with him, and he was a prosperous man." God is in biography as well as in history, and we behold his finger here. And it is not easy for us to estimate the struggle of age, he wrote a letter on the divorce of Henry VIII. He held that the marriage was illegal, as within the degree allowed by Scrip- ture; and therefore gave his opinion in favour of the divorce. His letter is referred to by Collier, Eccles. Hist., vol. ii. p. 55. Burnet, Hist. Reform., vol. i.'p. 170 (edit, 1816). It may be seen in Epis- tolce Calviniy third edit. 1597, p. 384. LIFE OF CALVIN. 9 that it must have cost a mind like Calvin's to aban- don his ancestral delusions. He acknowledges that his mind had been so far debased by Popery, that he reverentially kissed the rotten relics of creatures called saints; and when we have witnessed the spell-like power which Popery exercises over the consciences of the timid — nay, how it often quells the boldest of men into submission — one can, in some measure, enter into the recoil and revulsion produced by the prospect of forsaking all that had been held sacred and venerable, or calculated to open the way to honour and distinction. The system which taught a priest to trample on the neck of emperors, and vindicate the deed as religious, must have possessed a power truly satanic in blinding and deadening the consciences of its devotees. Calvin was for years one of the most zealous and abject of them all; but the disenthralling effects of Luther's struggles were beginning to be felt throughout Europe. The Confession of Augsburg, published in 1530; the Treaty of Smalcald, in 1531 ; and that of Nurimberg, in 1532, all sped onward these effects; and mind after mind was awakening from its lethargy. Authority, apostolicity, infallibility, and other figments might be quoted against this progressive movement; but it was a feeble attempt to arrest a flowing tide. The anta- gonism had begun. Truth and error were in conflict ; and Omnipotence alone could control the issues. The University of Bourges was at this period cele- brated as a school of law, and thither Calvin proceeded to study under a distinguished lawyer, Alciati,* who * He was born at Milan in 1492. 10 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. had been invited to that city from Italy by Francis I. Calvin is said to have listened to Alciati with a kind of " angelic ecstasy," and profited at once in theology and law, owing to the eminence of his professor in both departments. At the same time, he laid the foundation of some friendships which tended to mitigate the sor- rows of his troubled life. INIelchior Wolmar then taught Greek at Bourges, and that learned man formed a strong attachment to Calvin, his pupil, for which he accounted by saying that he combined the industry of a German with the vivacity of a Frenchman ; but the strongest tie, no doubt, was occasioned by Wolmar's expressed conviction that Calvin would eventually prove an intrepid assertor of the Reformed doctrines, to which the professor was thus early attached. The inward struggle was all the while advancing in Calvin's mind without any publicity, but with a direct bearing on the final issue. The flesh was striv- ing against the Spirit; and he has himself, in his own vigorous style, described his condition when the set time came for abandoning Popery and embracing the truth. It was in one of his evening walks with Wolmar in the"* neighbourhood of Bourges that he finally resolved to concentrate his attention on theo- logy, and that formed, in effect, the turning point of his history; it solved the question, whether Calvin's powers were to be expended upon the subtleties of law, or allowed to aim at the noblest object placed within the grasp of man — the disenthralling of mind, and the winning of souls to Christ. To render the resolution instantly a practical measure, he appears LTFE OF CALVIN. 1 1 to have occasionally preached in that vicinity, espe- cially at Lignieres, where the people acknowledged, what we can easily believe, that he preached better than the monks. But the unexpected illness and death of his father recalled him, for a little, from Bourges to Noyon. His native city had showed symp- toms of a desire to adopt the Reformed doctrines; for images had been destroyed and crosses thro^vn down ; and these and other events tended, perhaps, to expedite or confirm the change that was coming over Calvin; at least he now made arrangements for selling his hene- JiceSy and it appears, from the records of the city, that the sale took place in 1531. It is supposed that at this visit, Calvin communicated to his two brothers and his sister the views which he held regarding religion ; after which he removed to Paris, where he published his maiden work — a Commentary on Seneca's Trea- tise, De dementia. It may appear strange, that one described as harsh, unfeeling, and truculent, like Cal- vin, should have commenced his public life by such a production; but we apprehend that this early choice really furnishes a key to the heart or the true cha- racter of the Reformer. Benevolence or affection was unquestionably its groundwork, and even the errors which he committed were only misapplications of that principle. The work referred to has procured for Calvin the praise of men of all parties, at least for pre- cocious power, as it occupies the neutral territory on which prejudice and partisanship are not likely to encroach. His chief object in its publication was, if possible, to draw the attention of Francis I. to 1-2 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. the atrocity of those martyrdoms which were then so rife in Paris; but what could a treatise by a heathen avail against the heart of the fierce though accom- plished monarch of France, animated by a spirit of chivalry for Rome? A brief sojourn at Paris in the year 1532 made Calvin acquainted wdth some of the adherents of Lutheranism. His mind had been gradually approxi- mating to theirs; and he was now placed under an influence that matured and consolidated '^his belief. In terms of his previous resolution, he now finally discontinued the study of law; and though he still endeavoured to shun publicity, his views were now turned to the revival of religion among his country- men. His mind had slowly undergone that mighty revolution which amounts to a new creation — a tran- sition from death to life ; and he has himself enabled us to contemplate the transition thus made by his soul. He was led formally to renounce Popery and all its corruptions, and thus describes the process. As he had been taught from his youth, Calvin had professed the Christian faith, if the corruptions of Rome have any title to the name, but had no heart- felt or intelligent conviction of its importance. He believed that the knowledge of heaven w^as intrusted to priests, who were to be consulted as its oracles; but all his attainments never had enabled him, as he con- fesses, to worship God in truth, nor cherish solid hope, nor discharge aright the duties of the Christian life. He endeavoured to serve God, but failed in every at- tempt — he believed that he was redeemed, but knew LIFE OF CALVIN. 13 not how redemption should influence his life — he knew there would be a resurrection, but he shuddered at the thought — he concluded that mercy would be ex- tended to none but the deserving — he wished, like all men by nature, to supersede the Redeemer's righteous- ness — he thought that God could be satisfied by masses and confessions — supplications, sacrifices, and penance were employed to appease Him — he implored the saints to intercede ; but, after all, he was forced to confess that he felt no peace of mind — he spent his strength for nought, and only " laboured in the fire." "Whether he contemplated his own or Jehovah's cha- racter, he was wretched, and a terror took possession of him which, he says, no expiations could quell. The more strict his self- scrutiny, the more loud was his con- science in condemning. Looking back on his youth, and seeinof there only ungodliness — feelinfr that he had sought to extinguish the light which Jehovah sheds down, and withhold the homage which Jehovah demands, his mind was overwhelmed; and it was then that he learned that deep spiritual exercise which he afterwards taught to thousands. Amid this training he courted oblivion, but it would not come; and when every alternative had failed, he resolved, in a true self-righteous spirit, just to continue doing and endeavouring, in the expectation that this doing and endeavouring would at last succeed ! When truth at length began to dawn on him, it was with difficulty that the proud Calvin would regard it — nay, he eagerly strove to repel it.* He * Initio, fateor, strenue, animose resistebam. — Calvin. 14 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. had now begun to struggle with a law which would neither lower its demands nor submit to be com- promised, and felt that anguish which has some- times struck self-righteous man dumb in motionless despair.* His reverence for the Church was his stumbling-block; but the blessing of the converting Spirit removed it, and Christ became his all — from that day his maxim ever was: "None but Christ" — " God forbid that I should glorv, save in his cross." At Paris, Calvin first became acquainted with Farel. They met in the house of Stephen de la Foye, a con- vert and martyr to the truth; and there the good word of the kingdom was deposited in more hearts than Calvin's. Once emancipated from the arch-delusions — the Pope's infallibility, and the power of the hier- archy to damn — the rest of the Popish corruptions soon melted away — they were like snow before the sun- shine of summer, when the Sun of Righteousness arose. Calvin now saw the degradation into which he had sunk; and deploring in groans and tears his obstinate aberrations, he turned from them to God in Christ, according to the Gospel — a Papist no longer, but a Christian — a man of God, furnished unto many good works. From that day, thoughts which had their origin and their end in heaven became familiar to his soul. lie had experienced the essential connection between sin and misery — he was now to know the indissoluble * Toutes fois, et quantes que je descendoy en moy, ou que j'eslevoy le coeur a Toi, une si extreme liorreur me surprenoit, &c. — Calvin. LIFE OF CALVIX. 15 alliance which God has created between holiness and peace, and to understand that, though the laws of the moral world be less palpable than those of the material, they are neither less binding nor less inevitable. From his conversion, in short, Calvin moved upward like a culminating star; and had his eye been less sted- fastly fixed on heaven, the world would not have waged such a controversy against his memory and name.* We cannot, in this glance at his history, dwell in detail on the various incidents which befell Calvin at this period. He now began to stand forth as a defender of the Lutheran cause, as the Reformation was then designated, and to vindicate the rights of its friends. But he soon became an object of suspicion to the Parliament of Paris ; his apartments were, in con- sequence, searched, and Calvin was obliged to flee in disguise from the city. Though Margaret of Navarre endeavoured to shelter him along with other Refor- mers, he was not safe from the hot persecution that raged, and therefore retired to Saintonge; and while he preached the Gospel there whenever opportunity oifered, he circulated tracts^ prepared by himself, in the hope of alluring the people to think. By his lessons and efforts, Audin confesses, many were induced to abandon Popery and embrace the truth.t It has been said that the Reformation in France began when the voice of Calvin was heard; at all events, his disciples, * He who would form a right opinion of Calvin's Conversion should consult his Responsio ad Sadoletum, in which the Reformer describes the change. •f Audin, i. p. 68. 16 CALVTN AND SERVETUS. about this period, begin to be recognised as a separate body from the Lutherans. When the persecution had a little abated, Calvin returned to Paris; and it was about this period (1533-1534) that he had some interviews with Michael Servetus on the subject of his erroneous opinions. Arrangements were made for a conference regarding them; but the Spaniard did not appear, and we shall afterwards find Calvin referring to this affair. His labours at this period were brought to bear on various parts of France; and many converts of note adopted his opinions. But the Lutherans, in great numbers, were now remorselessly consumed in the flames at Paris, sometimes even to the extent of six in a single day; and when Calvin saw these funeral fires so frequently blazing, he resolved to abandon France, and seek an asylum in some of those countries where the truth was less intensely hated.* He selected Bale as the place of his retreat ; and in proceeding thither was robbed by his servant on the way. At Strasburg, Calvin borrowed money to help him on his journey; and for some time after his arrival at his adopted home, we find him co-operating with some of the leading minds of his age in advancing the cause of truth. * Previous to his departure, he puhlished at Orleans a treatise against a sect which had sprung out of the Reformation, holding the opinion that the soul sleeps from death to the judgment. It was first published in 1534, under the title of PsycliO])annucMa. No doubt can remain in the mind of any who have read the treatise, that Calvin, when he wrote it, had, with all his heart, abjured the heresy of Rome. LIFE OF CALVIN. 17 It was at Bale, in the year 1535 or 1536, that Calvin published the first edition of his Institutions of the Christian Religion. This is not the place to enter into any curious investigation regarding the time, the place, and the title under which that remarkable work first saw the light;* but it at once placed its author in the first rank of the master spirits of that age of mighty men. While labouring at the task, he is said to have passed whole nights without sleep, and days without food. He had but recently emerged from the fearful pit of Popery ; and yet so wondrous were his powers and his progress, that in this magnificent production of consecrated intellect he has drawn out all the truths of revelation in a perfect system, so that it were difficult to say what portion of the Christian scheme is overlooked or even displaced. It is saidt that fragments of the Institutes had been circulated at the court of Margaret of Navarre, while the author w^as preparing it; and if that statement be correct, he had begun his labour almost as soon as he embraced the Reformation. But, waving all details, we can only re- mark, that whether we regard the noble dedication to Francis I., enough of itself to render its author illus- trious — or the comprehensive power of combination which the work evinces — or the amazing acuteness and grasp of the author's mind — or the classic vigour and elegance of his style — or the learning with which his views are supported — or the thorough understanding * The curious reader -will find the matter largely considered hy Clement in his Biblioth. Ctirieuse, Art. Calvin. t Audin, i. 123. B 1 8 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. of the Christian system which it displays — or the high degree of holiness manifestly attained hy the author — it is equally surprising as a production. We cease to wonder that it instantly became the means of settling the religious opinions of tens of thousands — that it was employed as the theological class-book of many lands, and that after all the additional lights derived from criticism and the study of Scripture during the three hundred years which have rolled away since it was published, Calvin's Institutes still form a standard on which men fall back wherever an earnest belief and an intelligent Christianity sway the heart and life."* Pm-e religion had then become al- most the sole possession of a kind of Pariah caste, whose opinions led to the same results as the skins of wild beasts with which the early Christians were covered, in the gardens of Nero — they occasioned their torture and death; and Calvin strove to show that religion, as the Reformers held it, however hated by men, was noble, and ennobling, because it was divine. Even the prejudice of Popery has been com- pelled to do homage to the work. Audin compares the author to the war-horse of Job, rushing into battle, and says that Seneca gave fluency, Tacitus point, and Virgil poetic honey, to the Institutes of Calvin. The book, however, in the a])sence of its author, was con- * One desisfii of the -work was to disabuse the minds of men as to the Reformed doctrines, and, if possible, allay the storm of persecu- tion which was raging so fiercely. Francis I. at one time evinced some misgivings on the subject; and hence Calvin's endeavour to deepen the monarch's convictions, and reclaim him to reason and mercy. LIFE OF CALVIN. 19 demned by the Parliament of Paris to be reduced to ashes, as containing " damnable, pernicious, and here- tical doctrine." The Inquisition re-echoed the con- demnation. The Koran and the Talmud of heresy were names by which it became known. In short, it instantly became the rallying point or standard of the Reformed Churches — a hissing and a byword to the Papists.'^' Soon after the publication of this work, Calvin went into Italy, on a visit to Renee, the Duchess of Ferara, at whose court some of the Reformed then found a patroness and an asylum, t But the intolerance of the decaying superstition followed him thither, and he was soon obliged to flee from that city where Ariosto was treated Hke a menial, and Tasso harshly immured as a common maniac. He preached the Gospel, how- ever, at various places along his route; among others at Aoste in Piedmont; and though this episode in his history be surrounded, according to Muratori, with " a festoon of dreams," there is no reason to doubt, on the one hand, that Calvin was persecuted at Ferara by the Inquisition; and on the other, that he preached the Gospel with success in different parts of Italy. How melancholy the fact, that the fetters of spiritual oppression were then rivetted over all that lovely land, and still continue to chafe and to gall it, in spite of these providential attempts to break them ! * The edition printed at Lausanne 1559, contains some interesting information as to tlie zeal with which the work was first studied. f The history of this princess is one of the most affecting of that eventful age, and offers an interesting subject for a memoir. 20 CALYIX AND SERVETUS. Calvin once more proceeded to Noyon, finally to arrange liis patrimonial afikirs. "While there, it is said that some even of the priests were won by him to the truth. Wherever he went, he became a centre at once of attraction and of influence; and instead of that despotism of mind which ignorance or prejudice has ascribed to him, his whole history shows that wherever men loved the truth, Calvin was also beloved. He possessed the charm-like power of knitting such men to himself in bonds of closest amity. But he soon quitted Noyon, and hastened to seek some retirement where he might do good unmolested; and Strasburg or Bale was again selected for that purpose. He had now for ever abandoned the heresy of Rome. His was not a mind to concede infallibility to a man, or Godhead to a wafer of flour and water.*^" Whatever troubles might assail him in defending the truth, he now re- ceived and quenched them all on the shield of faith, while he was supported amid the conflict by that grace of which he had become the advocate and martyr. Niebuhr has remarked, that he who recalls into being what had vanished from existence, enjoys a blessedness like that of creating; and such blessed- ness was largely enjoyed by Calvin. " Moriemur," he said to Charles Y.. " sed in morte quoque victores erimus; non modo quod inde certus ad meliorem vitara transitus erit, sed quia sanguinem nostrum ad propa- * Our feelings are a mixture of horror and loathing, when we read that a monkey was once burned alive at Paris, by decree of the Par- liament, because it had eaten tUe good god. — Siniond''s Switzerland^ vol. ii. p. 301. LIFE OF CALVIN. 21 gandara illam quae nunc respuitur, Dei veritatem, seminis instar futurura esse scimus." In seeking a place of retreat, Calvin passed through Geneva, where he designed to sojourn only for a night. When he arrived there, in the ^on thof August_orSeptemFef,~1n--th^ year^ 1536*, the Re- formed doSrmeTTiacl heeii for some time adopted,.. nn d^ dQclare^^ he religion of tlie State. AVilliam Farel, a native of Gap, in Dauphine, and Peter Yiret of Orbe, were the instruments employed by Him who ruleth over all, in forwarding that work. The former has been compared to Cromwell, or to Knox, for boldness and decision, and possessed the trumpet- voice of a fearless orator; the latter was mild and persuasive — his words were falling dew; and, under their combined influence, the one uprooting, the other planting, the truth was established on the ruins of Popery in the city of Geneva. We shall hereafter find that a combination of circumstances favoured this transition. The love of civil liberty, for which the Genevese had long contended, and many of them died — the oppressions of the Duke of Savoy on the one hand, and of their bishop on the other, who, as their lord paramount, combined in his person the civil and spiritual power — the example of Berne and Germany — their disgust at the mummery and gross immorality of their priests— their aversion to certain of the Popish rites, for example, auricular confession; in one word, the Reformation tended to stimulate the minds of the Genevese in the direction of a change. They fell in with the current of their age, and were borne along 22 CALVIN AND SERVETIJS. by it to the possession of liberty, civil and religious, however unprepared they might be for the full enjoy- ment of the blessing. The Reformation in Geneva was thus begun about the year 1532, in the train of various political com- motions, which had prevailed for many years before. The people had long been exasperated and harassed by their rulers, and gladly hailed the prospect of emancipation. Reformers were invited to hold public discussions with the priests; and there, as elsewhere, the former were victorious. On the 10th of August, Farel preached before the Council; on the 27th, mass was abohshed; and on the 30th, the nuns of St Clair left the city, the monks of various orders havin A J gloomy forebodings regarding the future, he pro- ceeded to draw up a code of edicts or laws for the guidance of the little republic. At a subsequent period ■we shall find how these laws were violated; but they were passed with the sanction, and stamped with the authority, of the State. The civil power had its func- tions defined, and the spiritual had its province duly marked out; and, with religion presiding, Geneva might have presented a fair specimen of the good results of the co-operation of the two. In adopting his measures, Calvin was not satisfied \\'ith a super- ficial reform. He aimed at the extirpation of vice. He wished religion and virtue to be paramount. He declared that the Roman Pontiff*, and other tyrants, were not so much to be dreaded as the lives of men who brought ignomin}-, by their ungodliness, on the cause of the Reformation. His master-aim, therefore, was to make pure and undefiled religion supreme in the State and in the family, as well as in the indi- vidual soul. Whatever w^e may think of the mode or the form, these were the principles and tendencies of his legislation. INIeasures the most stringent were thus adopted to check the prevailing immorality. All was prohibited that could, by remotest implication, jar with purity of heart, speech, or behaviour; and had the laws of Geneva been such as could be enforced by human sures of corn, two tuns of wine, and a house." The registers of the city, under date 4th October 1541, contain an entry to the following effect : " Great wages granted to M. Calvin, in consideration of his great learning, and because travellers are such a charge to him." LIFE OF CALVIN. 31 authority, Calvin's efforts to complete the reform of j ^ Geneva would have supplied the first instance of a j perfectly Christian republic which the world ever saw — a religious Atalantis — a city of the blessed. But the bow was overstrained, and it broke. ^^X-egisIation was extended to men's dress, and food, and private habits — spheres in which the religion of the heart, and not the enactments of men, alone can operate. Yet the wise Hooker has said : " This device I see not how the best then living could have bettered, if we consider duly what the existent state of the Genevese did then require;" and this is the best expla- nation and the only apology for Calvin's rigid edicts. But human laws are applicable only to external con- duct; they can take no cognizance of the hidden man of the heart. Transgression, as seen by God, is not noticed by man until it appears in an overt and em- bodied form, inflicting damage on civil society. In short, as man cannot judge the heart, his legislation cannot directly affect its principles and motives. Calvin's mind, however, was transcendental in its viewi of God's law. He had admitted it to the sove- reignty of his own soul; and in legislating for Geneva, he tried to prescribe rules even for the souls of others. He felt that the almighty Being who had appoint- ed a physical law to regulate the beatings of the heart, had also appointed a moral law, not less certain or fixed, to regulate its motives. Starting with this thought, he strove to order all at Geneva according to f the revealed mind of God. Wherever this system was ^ wrong, it was by excess, and not by defect; and we /* ^ wrong, it Wi »Y J 32 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. need scarcely scruple to sa}-, that legislation like that of which Calvin was the author, with all the risorism imputed to it, was more in harmony with the Word of God — his mind — than the godless enactments of more modern times. The French Reformer's maxim was, that the Bihle is in everything supreme. To question that, was in his mind infidelity; and that conviction is the basis, or the starting-point, of his laws. Jesus applied the law of God, with all its force, directly to the conscience and the soul. The Reformer, sitting at the feet of Jesus, took his Word to guide him, and tried to do the same. Erroneous opinions and prin- ciples were consequently proscribed, as well as flagi- tious actions; though in carrying out this object as it did, the State perhaps attempted what only God can achieve with wayward man. Yet it will not be denied, that ere the world can be restored to happiness, some principles of action must be recognised different from those which have hitherto prevailed among the nations, and presided over the legislation of Christendom. Man must be- come the child of reason rather than of passion; and to accomplish that, religion, or rather God, must have the ascendency which is his due. The Saviour de- veloped such principles on earth. Calvin strove to render them paramount at Geneva, as they claim to be. The object was worthy of his wide-grasping mind ; and even to have failed in such an attempt, signalized him among the sons of men. But men soon arose to thwart these laws, and the Reformer's high-toned legislation occasioned a speedy LIFE OF CALVIN. 33 reaction. He demanded either a second exile or sub- mission to the Edicts. According to Hooker, he " would either have his will or leave them ;" and he obtained the former, though his new opponents sub- mitted with a reluctance similar to that with which a city yields when famine compels it to surrender. Some of the best citizens of Geneva confess that all its greatness was owing to the Edicts thus passed, and the courts thus established by Calvin.* While thus framing laws for the government of Geneva, in many respects with a wisdom which en- titles him to Montesquieu's eulogium : " The Gene- vese may bless the day that Calvin was bom," he did not neglect the spiritual well-being of the people. About this time he published a catechism for the young, which long continued a standard among the Churches of the Reformation; and we notice this publication here, because it was the first that brought Calvin's mind in direct contact with that of Scotland, where it was at one period used in the training of youth. At the same time, his pastoral labours were incessant. His yearly lectures have been estimated at one hundred and eighty-six — his sermons at two hundred and eighty-three. Indeed, he preached daily • The dispassionate Sennebier (Hist. Literaire de Geneve, torn, i., p. 192) thus describes these enactments : " On y reconnoit com- bien Calvin etait eloigne de vouloir donner trop de pouvoir au corps ecclesiastique, et avec quelle prudence il confia le salut, et la repu- tation des citoyens a un tribunal qui ne pouvoit jamais abuser de ses pouvoirs, tant la puissance ecclesiastique y etoit balancee par la puis- sance civile;" yet were they a source of interminable struggles on th« part of those who indulged licentiousness, and called it libertv. V 34 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. in the temple, or taught in the schools. He conducted the business of the presbytery — presided in the Con- sistory or session — tested the attainments of candi- dates for the ministry — gave his advice, from day to day, regarding the government of the Republic — received and entertained a crowd of visitors, from whom his house was seldom free — corresponded with the learned and illustrious in every land; and, amid all these distractions, was an author to an extent that has accumulated into nine folio volumes. Yet this was the man who said : " One thing I fear — lest I should appear to others to be an example of sluggish- ness." Some of the Reformers, who were nearly twice his age, habitually laid their difficulties before him for solution. He was, in short, the presiding spirit of the sphere in which he moved. Princes sought his counsel, and the poorest were helped by his means. Notwithstanding the acrimony with which it has long been men's habit to inveigh against him, it is true of Calvin, that when the ear heard him, it blessed him — when the eye saw, it gave witness to him. He had enemies both numerous and powerful ; but then, as now, they were too often the enemies of pure religion as well as of our Reformer. As he increased in celebrity, scarce a quarter of the Christian world can be named to which his influence did not reach. He was mainly instrumental in send- ing a mission to the Brazils — the first, we think, undertaken by Protestants; but, owing to the igno- rance and inexperience of the men engaged in it, the enterprise ended in disappointment and disaster. Men ^\ LIFE OF CALVIN. 35 flocked from many lands to learn wisdom at Geneva, from him who was now its undisputed chief. Italy, Spain, and France, were each represented by a Church in the city; and so great was the influx of foreigners, attracted chiefly by Calvin's European fame, that in the course of the sixteenth century, no fewer than three thousand two hundred and twenty-two heads of families were enfranchised in Geneva, of whom only sixteen were natives. So numerous, indeed, was the concourse, that the city seemed too limited to contain them. Yet, prosperous as all this appears, Calvin was never without causes of deep disquietude. Calumny was ever busy ; and the discordant elements, which had only been awed into silence, not thoroughly ex- / tinguished, threatened from time to time to convulse the Republic afresh. The new constitution of Geneva was the cause of ever-increasing offence to the disso- lute, because it hampered and coerced them in their vices, and no opportunity was lost to bring it into dis- repute. Countenanced by some of the ejected priests, the turbulent within the city began to renew their! contentions ; and the Libertines, a cabal of dissolute/ citizens, clamoured against the new canons, for th^ same reason that a prisoner complains of his jailer, or the Infidel of the Word of God. This opposition to Calvin became yet more keen as he endeavoured to mature his large plans of reform. His anxious desires for frequent communion, and his wish to see the Lord's supper celebrated every month,* * " Jam vero singulis mensibva coenam c«Iebrari maxime nobis placeret," &c. — Calvin. / 36 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. gave occasion to violent hostility; and he rather yielded to the weakness of others than to his own convictions of what is right, when he consented that that sacrament should be dispensed only four times in a year. This, like all that he attempted for man's good, provoked a controversy or rather a conflict; but he was relieved for a little from the troubles which disturbed him at Geneva by a journey which he made to Bale and Metz, to aid and counsel the Churches there. The only rest which he knew was a change of la- bour; and it were difficult to decide whether he toiled most assiduously for Geneva or the other Reformed Churches.* In the years 1542 and 1543, the ravages of the plague, accompanied by famine, laid waste the city, and increased the difficulties of the Reformer; yet was he prepared to push forward the work of Re- formation at home, and repel the heresy of unholy men abroad. Albert Pighe, one of the most cele- brated of the Roman party, about this period singled out Calvin as an antagonist, in whom to overthrow certain of the Reformed doctrines, especially that resrarding the bondage of the will in fallen man; but Pighe was himself discomfited, and the post which he assailed was rendered stronger than ever by Calvin's defence against the Romanist's attack. And, while thus engaged against Popish opponents, it is interest- * The magistrates "were not always ungrateful. Again and again •we find in the registers of the city such an entry as the foUovring : " On donne a Calvin un tonneau de viu vieux, pour les peines qu'il prend de la ville.'' LIFE OF CALVIN. 37 ing to notice the feelings which Calvin cherished to- ward his great coteraporary, Luther. He also had puhlished some violent invectives against the Gene- vese Reformer and his friends; and had the latter been only the passionate or vindictive being which many suppose, he had now an opportunity of gratify- ing his malice by an angry reply. But far from that — while he deplored the violence of the great patriarch of the Reformation, he remembered the blessings which he had imparted to tlie Church ; and Calvin, therefore, apologized for Luther's asperity, instead of attacking himself. With one hand our Reformer would oppose the benefactor of the world when he departed from the simplicity of Scripture, but with the other he drew the veil of kindness over the foibles of that great man. Calvin might be rigid and severe, but it was against vice, and the enemies of the truth as it is in Jesus. To all others he was pitiful and courteous, as that truth taught him to be; while he ever met the penitent with that alacrity which the generous display to the fallen, and was oftener than once the victim of his own kindly and forgiving nature. During the three-and- twenty years of Calvin's resi- dence at Geneva after his recall — that is, till the period of his death — his life may be likened to one long struggle. At one period, he was "sing his ut- most exertions to counteract the plots of Charles V., who sought to beguile the Protestants, and turn them from their stedfastness by wiles, when persecution was found to be unavailing. At another, he was no less 38 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. intently occupied in refuting heresy, and healing di- visions among the Reformed themselves. From time to time his antagonists at Geneva occasioned commo- tions and perplexity, and the lawless conduct of many of the citizens produced utmost sorrow.* At the same period, the sufferings of the Waldenses, so cruelly massacred in Cabrieres and Merindoles, at the com- mand of Du Bellai, governor of Piedmont, called for his interference, and all his endeavours were put forth on their behalf, and that at a time when internal factions, urged on by foreign hostility, demanded his utmost energies successfnlly to meet them. He had now reached such an eminence among the Reformed, that they rarely mentioned his name without a prayer for his safety; and it is scarcely too much to say, that on one so signalized the care of all the Churches was laid. Among other things, Calvin, like our own Re- formers, had a keen struggle to maintain with the cupidity of those who had seized on and secularized the property of the Church. He was anxious to re- cover it, as the means of promoting the general inte- rests of truth and righteousness; and though his life was pre-eminently a warfare, few of his struggles oc- casioned more annoyance than this. As we trace the history of such endeavours, we cannot help conclud- ing, that if Calvin sacrificed his repose to his ambi- tion of ruling at Geneva, as his flippant and shallow * When the plague raged in 1545, so abandoned were some of them, that they actually agreed to take measures for spreading the infection, and too fatally succeeded before their plot was discovered. LIFE OP CALVIN. 39 censors suppose, he acted like the maniac who leaped into the crater of Etna to secure immortality.* Amid these commotions, Calvin again and again contemplated abandoning his post at Geneva. Disease, and even want,t added to the illness of his wife, were pressing on him, and these, eked out by his more public trials, extorted from him the desire to leave the city, at least for a season, " even though he should creep on his hands " away from it. About the same period (1546), as we shall afterwards find, Servetus renewed his correspondence w^ith him, and at once added to his troubles, and drew forth the declaration, that if that heretic visited Geneva, Calvin would use his endeavour to prevent him from leaving it alive. But it was Amied Perrin, now chosen Captain- J general of the Republic, who chiefly thwarted the Reformer's plans; and a struggle between them be- gan about this period, which ended only with Perrin's exile. If we may believe the records of those times, his family were conspicuous above all others in Geneva, at once for their wealth and their dissoluteness; and * The following extracts from the registers of the city are curi- ous : — " On lui (Calvin) fit present le 29 December 1547, de tons les utensiles de son menage qui etait a la seigneurie. II refusa le 5 June 1553, deux-ecus d'or sol, que le conseil vouloit lui donner, pour les peines qui'il avait prises pour I'etat de Berne. Le conseil lui ayant envoye du bois pour se chauffer le 28 December, 1556, il en apporta Targent que Ton ne voulut pas accepter. Le conseil lui envoya le 14 Mai 1560, un tonneau du meilleur vin qu'on peut trouver parce qn'il n'en avait pas du bon. II eut beaucoup de peine a recevoir 25 ecus pour les frais de sa raaladie, et pria instam- ment le conseil de les reprendre le 22 June 1563." *)• " II se trouvait en uecessite." 40 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. crime after crime alleged against them had become subjects of inquiry before the Consistory. The Gene- vese ministers, when they entered upon office, swore " never to abuse God's Word to serve their carnal affections, or to please any man ;" and Calvin did not violate his oath. The moral outrages which had tar- nished the new polity of Geneva were punished in the persons of Perrin and some of his kindred; and hence arose the warfare that raged so keenly and so long between the Reformer and the Captain-general of the State.* The death of Luther, in 1546, was embraced as affording a favourable opportunity for promoting union among the Protestants. Calvin again entered warmly into the measure in which he had formerly been baffled, and proposed to Melancthon a mode of ex- plaining the chief causes of difference which, he thought, might have tended to harmony — so desirable for all, so peculiarly precious to the large and catholic soul of Calvin. But the prospect of peace was soon overcast. The controversy regarding the Lord's sup- per divided the Churches; and though Calvin made concessions which exposed him to the censure of some * The history of Perrin's proceedings may be seen in Calvini Epistolce, No. 207. When Perrin tied from the city, he was exe- cuted in effigy, according to the laws of the Republic; yet it must be confessed, that some of the laws against which the Libertines reclaimed appear ludicrous when seen in the light of modern legislation. For example, it was enacted, " That no man, in what state, qualitie, or condition soever he might be, dareth be so bardie to make, or cause to be made, or to wear hosen, or doublettes cut, jagged, embroydered, or lined with silk, upon payne to forfeyte sixty sous." — Laives of Geneva, &c., p. 71. LIFE OF CALVIN. 41 of the Protestants, the breach was widened rather than filled up. At the same time, Perrin and his allies had matured their plans for embroiling, and, if pos- sible, for banishing the Reformer. Such was the condition of the city at this critical period, that wild popular tumults were produced; and nothing could arert the threatened anarchy but the boldness and decision of Calvin. While the city was in a state of uproar and misrule, he rushed into the midst of the rioters, and his opportune intrepidity awed the mob. He declared that he had come among them to offer his bosom to their swords, and called on them to make him their first victim, if they wished for blood. The appeal stilled the tumult, and saved the city;* but it was a new source of bitterness to the Reformer. James Gruet, a leader of the Libertine faction, was beheaded at Geneva in 1547. He w^as condemned on a charge of blasphemy, in terms of the Edicts of the city; and it has been supposed that he died a martyr to freedom of opinion. His conduct, however, was such as to outrage all the laws of the State. The mere catalogue of his crimes, as given by Spon and Sennebier, is such as to show that the civil arm was bound to interfere in defence of the rights of society, though religious errors formed part of the charges against him. But all local considerations were again merged in the danger w^hich threatened the Churches, when Charles Y. devised and promulgated new and insi- dious measures for checking the Reformation. It * See Calv. Ejnsti, No. 82. 42 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. could not be put down by force, and must, therefore, be assailed by stratagem. A document, entitled the Interim^ was accordingly published, with the design of restoring Popery, or reclaiming the Protestants; and its statements were so ambiguous, ensnaring, and dangerous, that Calvin said, the Reformers must now be " as ready for suffering as if the sword were raised above their heads, or the fires kindled to consume them." It aimed at the same result, and produced the same evils, as the Indulgences granted to our struggling forefathers ; but our Reformer boldly faced the danger, and his efforts, both in correspondence and as an author, were blessed to diminish the peril, by inspiriting men to meet it. In the hope of healing the divisions at Geneva, Calvin, after some negotiations, proposed to restore Perrin to the position of influence which he had lost by his outrages; and for a time this generosity was rewarded with peace. But fresh commotions soon arose. The city became again like the troubled sea. Truth and error — the flesh and the spirit — religion and the natural heart, were in conflict; and tumult was the result. A Popish writer, Bernini,* makes Calvin behead Perrin on the altar-stone of the Cathedral in Geneva; and though that deed had actually been perpetrated, the violence of many against him could scarcely have been more intense. There were, how- ever, some sources of solace opened up to the Reformer amid his troubles. He rejoiced to find England ac- tively engaged in the work of Reformation, and wrote * Historia di tutte I'Heresie. LIFE OP CALVIN. 43 to the Duke of Somerset, then protector of the king- dom, on the subject; urged him forward in the work of sweeping away abuses and every relic of supersti- tion, and plied him with all the arguments which experience or principle suggested, for completing what had been so well begun. There are many now in the Church of England who labour to disprove the share which Calvin took in promoting the Reformation of their country, or the ascendency which he and his opinions held over the minds of her greatest and most honoured men, the founders of their Church's polity, and till lately, her boast and her glory. But the history of the period must be mutilated or effaced before the attempt succeed. Nothing can more clearly evince the hardihood of men in denying the best authenticated events, when partisanship de- mands the denial, than the endeavours in question. Cranmer, Ridley, Parker, and other English Refor- mers, were Calvin's correspondents; and though he chid the " tolerable fooleries" which they retained in their liturgy and service, he at the same time strove with all his energy to advance the cause of truth among them. It is an ungrateful requital for his labours to deny that he laboured at all. Calvin was thanked by Archbishop Parker, in Queen Elizabeth's name, for his interest in reforming England; and that single fact refutes a thousand calumnies.* To add to his other sorrows, Calvin's wife died in the year 1549. From his letters on the subject, it appears that she was an helpmate worthy of such a ♦ See Toplady's Historic Proof, pp. 367-381. 44 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. man. His was, therefore, though a deep, not a hope- less sorrow; he felt, but was not overAvhelmed. Amid his trials, he practised as he taught; so that his example confirmed what his lips proclaimed, although his sorrow was so great that seven years after his bereavement, he referred to it with feeling remem- brance. The void which her departure occasioned was great, but grace in him was greater still; and he bore his calamity as a Christian should do. It is pleasing to study the conduct of one so signalized as Calvin, when thus placed on a level with com- mon mortals by the hand of death. Christendom now acknowledged his pre-eminence — sovereigns sought his aid — even Rome felt uneasy at his power; but his character never seems greater than when he mourns the death of his consort, and comes down from the heidit to which Providence had raised him to minofle in the sorrows, and manifest the tenderness of man. The power which subjugated the Genevese factions, or guided the Reformed Churches, and the affection which tended the sick-bed of a dying wife, were in Calvin's mind only different aspects of the same lofty principle — dependence on a covenant God. Lelius Socinus, Servetus, and others, by the heresies which they spread about this period (1549), tended to endanger or to weaken the cause of the Reformation, or even to undermine revelation itself; and Calvin's attention was turned to the increasing evil. While he strove to check their ruinous heresy, he was not un- mindful either ot promoting peace among the Refor- LIFE OF CALYIN. 45 mers or proclaiming war at once against the craft and the cruelty of Charles and the persecutors. In conse- quence of his untiring assiduity, and his influence over men, a decree "was passed about this time, enacting that those who were guilty of holding intercourse with Geneva should be burned to death at a slow fire.* Religious reform so wrought on men's minds, that liberty at once for the body and the soul became a passion burning intensely, and earnestly pursued; and the tyrants of that age sought to crush that spirit, where the serpents sought to crush the infant Her- cules — in its cradle, Geneva. Any one who has devoted due attention to Cal- yin s history, or has examined his manuscripts in the library of Geneva, will have no diflSculty in conclud- ing that he kept the consciences of a large portion of Europe.t Yet it were a pleasing task, and might dis- abuse the minds of his traducers, to show the mildness with which he dealt with all who were in quest of truth : " Let my name be unknown, or utterly buried —if the truth prevail," was his constant maxim ; and it at once explains the secret of his ascendency, and prompts our surprise at the bitterness with which his memory is assailed. There were men who resorted ' to Geneva to impose on Calvin's benevolence, and who, when detected, like Bolsec and Baldouin, be- came his bitterest enemies. Their enmity we can * Hist, des Eglises, ascribed to Beza, vol. i., p. 82. •f* Among the folio manuscripts of Calvin there is one fasciculus^ with the following title : " Lettres par divers Rois, Princes, Seig- neurs, et Dames pour le consulter surles cas de conscience epineaux, ou pour le remercier de 8es ouvrages.'* , 46 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. understand; but for men who profess to love truth and godliness, to assail the Reformer, can be the re- sult only of ignorance and prejudice. Owing to the toils and perils to which Calvin was exposed, the report was repeatedly circulated that he was dead; a general rumour of that kind prevailed in 1551, and so greatly were the monks of his native city, Noyon, dehghted by the intelligence, that they went in solemn procession to render thanks to God for the heresiarch's death. He thus learned his own importance in their eyes — while he was at the time busily engaged in defending the truth which those monks corrupted, and conducting a controversy against Jerome Bolsec, on the subject of predestination. It led to the fickle Bolsec's expulsion from the city; and had not the future conduct of that versatile Frenchman, who relapsed into Popery, proved that his heart was unsound, the judgment of the magistrates against him might have been reckoned severe. He was one of those unstable yet pretending men, who are most sorely punished by neglect; and, perhaps, Calvin's great reputation was not advanced by the part which he took against him. He was, in truth, r too mean an opponent for our Reformer; and only the critical position to which Geneva was reduced by the violence of faction could justify any proceeding against one so vacillating or so feeble as Bolsec. In the year 1552, the faction at Geneva again became as turbulent as ever. Their malice was now chiefly directed against the refugees from Italy, France, and other Popish countries, whom Calvin befriended, LIFE OP CALVLV. 4? and who were devotedly attached to him in return. Cabals were formed, and plans were laid which, had they succeeded, would have driven Calvin into exile, and perhaps hurried some of the refugees to the stake. It was amid scenes such as these that the year 1553 dawned on the little city of Geneva — the year in which the unhappy Servetus arrived in it, and ^^as hurried to a death by many reckoned that of a mar- tyr. In subsequent chapters, the different steps of his lamentable trial will be traced with the accuracy of history, and an evidence that may supersede all future inquiry.* Subsequent to the trial of Servetus, the controversy between the civil and the spiritual courts, regarding the power of excommunication, was carried on with oppressive injustice on the one hand, and great bold- ness on the other. The^ Edicts of the city, based on the Word of God, had vested that power where it ought to be — in the hands of the spiritual rulers; but the magistrates had illegally seized on the power, and restored Philibert Berthelier, an excommunicated person, to his place at the Lord's table. The mini- sters of the city reclaimed, because the laws both of the Scriptures and the Republic were outraged; and hence arose a long protracted struggle between the spiritual and the civil powers, which terminated in an appeal to the Helvetic Churches as umpires. They unanimously decided in favour of Calvin ; so that a new triumph gave new consolidation to his power.t • This refers to the following translations from Rilliet. + This contest will be described in a subsequent part of this 48 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. Rather than submit to Erastian interference, Calvin ' was determined either to die or be driven again into banishment. His decision for the truth was blessed J to secure a victory; and the obnoxious decree of the Council, constituting the civil magistrate a judge in spiritual things, was rescinded. Meanwhile the heresy of Servetus was spreading — Poland, Hungary, and other places began to be infect- ed; and when the grief of this was added to his other sorrows, Calvin at last determined to quit Geneva. For now nearly twenty years, he had scarcely known repose within its walls, and as connection with him exposed its citizens to persecution and death, as soon as the oppressors had them in their power, he was anxious at once to free others from such danger, and himself from such misery. But about that period (1554) our Knox arrived at Geneva; and, encouraged by such a coadjutor, Calvin continued to resist his enemies and uphold the truth, as before. Their kin- dred feelings, and principles, and aspirations made them the helpers of each others joys, and the soothers of each others sorrows; and amid the commotions which so often convulsed Geneva, a friendship was formed between these two men which influenced not merely their respective Churches, but whose effects will stretch into eternity, as they helped to dissipate spiritual darkness from many a mind, and teach thou- Tolume. It entered largely, as we shall hereafter see, into the causes ■which decided the doom of Servetus — though this has never yet been adverted to with that care which justice to the Reformer's memory demands. LIFE OF CALVIN. 49 sands to stand fast in their spiritual freedom. Nor was such a comforter unneeded by Calvin. The bloody Mary now filled the English throne. God- liness was dragged to the stake or driven into exile; and hence Geneva had become an asylum for the persecuted from England as well as from other lands. Indeed, whether heresy infected, or persecution peeled and scattered, the Churches, it was felt as a local disaster in that city, so close were its connections with every Reformed country. While Calvin bewailed the death of Ridley and Latimer in England, and the burning of all but uncounted multitudes in France, our countryman, installed as minister of an English congregation at Geneva, aided him with his counsels, or participated in his sorrows. A Protestant Church was at the same time organized in Poland; and " the Christian Hercules,"* at the request of the king, drew up its constitution. But while he was endeavouring to plant the seeds of truth in that kingdom, the disciples of Servetus began to grow bold at Geneva. Matthew Gribaldo, a lawyer of some celebrity, adopted that unhappy man's tenets; and much dispeace to the Reformer and the Republic was the result. In consequence of Calvin's harassing employments and crowding cares, his health, which had always been delicate, now began to decline. He was still in the vigour of life; but trials and engagements like his antedate old age; and in the year 1556, when only in his forty-seventh year, he was seized with an illness in the pulpit — where it might almost be said that he * Beza's name for Calvin. D 50 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. lived — which forced him for a season, in some mea- sure, to withdraw from public life. But amid his trials, he continued to he cheered by the presence of Knox; and our own Reformer has recorded the joy which he felt at witnessing the reformation now pro- duced by Calvin's instrumentality at Geneva. The ecclesiastical discipline, which the great Conde visited that city avowedly to examine, and which was so offensive to the licentious, but so promotive of purity when administered according to the Word of God, had led to its proper results ; and Knox gives this testi- mony to their extent : " I neither fear," he says, " nor shame to say that Geneva is the most perfect school of Christ that ever w^as in the earth since the days of the apostles. In other places, I confess Christ to be truly preached, but manners and religion so sincerely reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place beside."* In proportion to his self-sacrificing efforts was the obloquy of Calvin's enemies; but his soul was borne up and onwards by the sight of good ac- complished, and of men reformed well-nigh in spite of themselves, and he continued to act as " the prop of the Reformation," until, directly or indirectly, all its Churches felt the influence of his mind. The glory of God is the final cause of religion. An- tagonism on the part of his people against all evil is * A similar testimony has been borne to the effects of the plat- form -which Knox himself set up in Scotland. After referring to the changes, Kirkton says : " Scotland hath ever been by emulous foreigners called Philadelphia; and now (1649) she seemed to be in her flower." LIFE OF CALVIN. 51 the law of working it out; and Calvin threw himselt heart and soul into the work — the noblest, nay, the only noble one, that can engross the attention of man. The closing years of his life were naturally of a less stirring kind than those which went before. Bland- rata, Alciati, Stancari, Gentili, and other ingenious but unstable men, who appear to have adopted the errors of Servetus, with various modifications, and thus de- parted far from the simplicity of the truth, often dis- turbed the peace of his declining days; and a renewed attack of his former illness, in his fiftieth year, tended further to enfeeble the venerable man. For eight months he was unable for public duty ; but his days and nights, in spite of every remonstrance, were still given to the work of counselling the Churches. From the effects of this illness he never completely recovered. His right leg continued ever after so weak that he often required to be carried to his pulpit or his chair. His soul had over-informed and over-tasked his feeble frame, and premature old age was the result. In the year 1558 Knox was invited to return to Scotland. At Calvin's urgent suit, he consented to the proposal; and these noble brothers separated in the month of January 1559, till they should meet before the throne. The period of his departure was critical, and Calvin, no doubt, felt his isolation. A plot had been formed to crush Genevese liberty, and re-annex the Republic to Savoy. Henry II. of France was at the head of the scheme ; but, when meditating that design, he was killed in a tournament by one of his own officers; and the alarms of Calvin for his 52 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. adopted home were thus providentially dispelled. They had only increased, while they lasted, his zeal for advancing its welfare; and, co-operating with some of the most learned men of his time, he now carried into effect what had long been with him a favourite project — the founding of a Seminary such as the wants of the age and the celebrity of Geneva demanded. The distinguished Bonnivard helped to endow it. Beza was its first president, and it soon became as famed as the city in which it was established. The spirit which reared that institution was kindred with that which animated Knox in his educational plans; and the pre-eminence of Geneva and Scotland among the nations of the earth attests the far-seeing wisdom of the Reformers. Calvin was now much enfeebled, in consequence of an effusion of blood from the lungs, added to his other ailments and debility. He was, at the same time, distracted by increasing solicitations for counsel from every land; while the number of his stanch and untiring antagonists appeared to increase with his years. A mere catalogue of their names induces us to wonder how one enfeebled and prematurely aged man could encoimter them all, and that nearly at the same time. Blandrata, Gentili, Stancari, Grib- aldo, Baldouin, Castalio, Heshuse, and others, felt his controversial power, either together or in rapid succession, while he continued to publish commentary upon commentary, and treatise upon treatise, as if he had lived utterly retired and secluded from the activi- ties of his stirring times. The loss of Knox was now LIFE OF CALVIN. 53 compensated by the acquisition of Theodore Beza, sent in providence as a comforter to the Refonner's closing days ; and his heart was re-animated thereby, as well as by the tidings that persecution was be- coming less hot in France, and pure religion more and more vigorous in Poland. It is pleasing to notice, amid all his pains, how warm was the interest which he continued to take in the welfare of the Church of Scotland — indeed, of every Church which would listen to his counsels ; and it is no less gratifying to observe the change that had at last come over the people and rulers of Geneva towards their great Re- former. The Protestant princes invited Calvin to be present at a conference held at Poissy, in France, that they might be aided by his advice; but the Council of Geneva would not grant their consent, unless host- ages " of the first rank" were given for his safe-con- duct and return.* No longer hated and traduced, men had learned to bow to his authority, if they had not all imbibed his spirit; and he gradually became the object of as deep veneration as he had formerly been the victim of contumely and persecution. Two thousand one hundred and fifty Reformed Churches had now been planted in France. His native country had cast him out — his native city had returned thanks to God for his supposed death ; and the founding of these churches was the Reformer's revenge. In Germany, Luther operated on the spot; the same is true of Knox in Scotland; but Calvin laboured at a distance, by his letters and his books, * Spon, i., 307, Note O. 54 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. not by his present person and his living voice — and yet his efforts, blessed by God, were crowned with the success which we have mentioned. He and his co- adjutors wielding their weapons from afar, shook the superstition of a nation. It was the power of truth — the manifest interposition of Heaven — the little stone cut out of the mountain gradually covering the land. But his debility increased, and his complaints gradually became more numerous and overpowering. At last, intestinal inflammation reduced his strength, so far as to threaten to cut him off (8 th October 15G1 ). Perpetual vomitings, and a general upbreak- ing of his overwrought constitution, were added to his other symptoms. From time to time, however, he was able to preach; nor did his other labours ter- minate — it was with reluctance that they were even diminished. His correspondence with all the Churches was still maintained ; and had it been otherwise, he could ill have been spared. Civil war now began to devastate France ; and those woes commenced by which wicked men sought to extirpate religion from that land, which eventually deluged it with blood, or turned it into a hunting-field for Popery to let loose its vengeance against the truth — a preserve in which victims might be prepared in holocausts — in hundreds of thousands, for the Man of Sin. But though Calvin revived from time to time, his bodily vigour was broken. He was still able, however, occasionally to preach and lecture, and even to address the Emperor Charles once more on the subject of his untiring persecutions. But the record LIFE OF CALVIN. 55 of his life henceforth (1562) becomes little more than a register of sufferings; and it was only because he could not exist apart from the cause to which all his energies were devoted, that he continued to revise and republish his works, or even to originate new productions.* His interest in the rehgious welfare of Poland was one of the last which the progress of disease subdued. On the 6th of February 1564, Calvin preached his last sermon. From that day he was unfit for the discharge of his public duties, though, while he was able to be carried to church, he sometimes added a few exhortations to those of the preacher. His own account of the " crowd" of diseases which assailed him, now rendered it plain that nature must soon sink under the pressure. His pain was sometimes excruci- ating, and his slender frame, inclining to consumption, could ill withstand such shocks as he endured ; yet his only exclamation was : " How long, O Lord? how long?" On the 27th of March, he was present for the last time in the Council. On the 2d of April he was carried to church. He thereafter made his Will — a singularly instructive document, in which he drops the polemic for ever, and becomes only a Christian, longing to die at peace with all. It is the act of the departing believer, embracing for the last time those whom he will not embrace again till they meet before the throne, to follow the Lamb whithersoever he leadeth. In that document, Calvin clings with a fond * His last work was his Prelections on Ezekiel, which he left unfinished. See the Preface. 56 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. tenacity to the common centre of the spiritual uni- verse — Christ — the Saviour of the lost — the Reconciler of the guilty — God with us. The eulogy pronounced by Morus upon Calvin there receives a practical illus- tration: Christum Pectore — Christum ore — Christum opera spirat. His next desire was to meet the magistrates of the city once more ere he departed — and that wish was accorded. They assembled at his house to hear the counsels of the dying saint and sage; the interview is the finest instance of the influence which the Church should exert on the State which is to be found, per- haps, in the whole history of the Church; while Calvin's words are all that even he could have spoken on a death-bed — ardent, eloquent, sublimely holy, faithful. This peroration of his public life was in- tensely pathetic. He prayed — shook hands with the rulers; and they parted in tears, never to meet till they assemble again before the Judge of all. On the 28th of April, the Ministers of the Canton were assembled to receive the parting counsel of their honoured brother, as he passed on before them to his reward. The emaciated frame of the holy man was animated for a little with renovated vigour, and words were spoken which touched the souls of all. Bene- volence, humility, holiness, the fruits of the Spirit, were there. Farel came to visit him, and after that venerable minister departed, Calvin's time was exclu- sively occupied in prayer. His agony sometimes ex- torted a cry; but he hushed the voice of nature by the words : " I was silent. Lord, for thou didst it." LIFE OF CALVIN. 57 Grace was now triumphant — it was just melting into glory. His life tells how a Christian should live — his death-hed shows how a Christian may die. On the 19 th of ]\Iay, Calvin was so far revived that he could sup with his brethren; and when he left them, he remarked that his spirit would still linger among them. From that day he lay for the most part in a state of stupor; but on Saturday the 27th of May, he again rallied for a little, and was dictating to a friend, who acted as his secretary, only eight hours before his death. But at eight o'clock on the evening of that day — John Calvin died. No struggle accompanied his dissolution — not a doubt was ex- pressed — not a limb was moved — his senses, his judgment, even his voice, left him only with his breath, and Beza found him " tranquilly dead." He had lived somewhat less than fifty-five years; but into that period, the work of centuries was compressed. The tidings were received with general lamentation. The city mourned her wisest citizen ; the Church la- mented her ablest pastor; the college, its founder; and all, their friend. Crowds flocked to see his re- mains. Foreigners who came to visit or to hear him — among others, Queen Elizabeth's ambassador — mingled in the throng. On Sabbath the 28 th, the corpse was placed in the coffin; on the 29th, it was laid in the grave. At Calvin's own request, no pomp followed him to the tomb ; and no stone was raised to tell who lay below. The place of his sepulture in the grave- yard of Plein Palais is unknown; but though, like that of Moses, all unknown to mortal eye, the body is 58 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. " still united to Christ" — the corruptible is waiting for its clothing of incorruption. " li^OV VTVOV "We offer no elaborate character of Calvin here. The whole space in which we have hastily glanced at his life would be insufficient to describe aright even his closing days. Do we regard him as a Commentator ? — He has shed the light of deep study, and deeper godliness, over nearly every book of Scripture except the Apocalypse. The word of God was to him as sacred as if he had heard Jehovah speak it. In judiciousness, his expositions are unrivalled. The intense acuteness of his mind, and his wide grasp of thought, enabled him to seize on first principles, so that his system is pre-eminently one of essential truths. No mind can penetrate farther, or soar higher than his did; and hence his favour with the thinking — his offensiveness to the superficial. Do we think of him as a Christian ? — Christ was his ALL. Self was laid in the dust. It was the very soul of his religious conviction to say : " Man must be nothing, that God in Christ may be everything." His God was Father, Son, and Spirit — the only living and true God. Belief in that God as reconciling sinners to himself in Christ had become the basis and the strength of Calvin's character. Do we regard him as a Reformer ? — He is second to none in the influence which he exerted in the glo- rious emancipation which took place in the sixteenth LIFE OF CALVIX. 59 century. The planting of more than two thousand Reformed Churches in France attests his ascendency and power; and his works still follow him. Do we study him as a Friend ? — Never was man more intensely loved than Calvin. His colleagues leant on him with an idolatrous affection. He pos- sessed the secret and inexplicable power of binding men to him by ties which nothing but sin or death could sever. They treasured up every word that dropped from his lips ; and were this the place, we might explain how their friendship led to some of the most singular plans for collecting his sayings which the history of literature supplies.* The harsh and " horrible " doctrines ignorantly imputed to him by men who know his religious opinions only in travesty and caricature, had not succeeded in chilling what was genial, or souring what was nobly generous in his nature. In a tall and somewhat fantastic mansion, in one of the streets leading from the Lake to the Cathedral of Geneva, might often be seen assembled a group of grave and reverend men. The chamber in which they met was small and meanly furnished; for its occupant was so poor that his very bed was not his own. Its chief ornaments were goodly folios, among which those of Augustine were conspicuous. In that group the visitor might see one man of venerable aspect, m with silvery hair and flowing beard — resolute, yet mild — fearless against an enemy, but gentle and bland among friends. It was William Farel of Neufchatel. * See Preface to Calvin's Prelections on Hosea, by Crispinus. 60 CALVIN ANi) SERVETUS. Beside him, and almost leaning upon his bosom, was another — child-like, gentle, and timid by nature, yet inured by the spirit of the times and by frequent perils, to dare and achieve great things. That was Peter Viret of Lausanne. Beside them sat one whose nobility of mien told that he was designed for great events. While his keen, penetrating eye, and his bearing to those around him bespoke his large afiPections, they also pro- claimed that he did not fear the face of man. It was the Reformer of Scotland — Knox. Less prominent in the gr^up were some younger spirits — Theodore Beza, and one or two Italian refugees — rather listen- ing to the discussion than mingling in it; and some- what toward one corner of the apartment, sat two who obviously did not enter with their whole souls into the evening's entertainment. They could not sympathize with the deep and thorough reform of all Church grievances for which the men assembled pled. They could not understand why human inventions and "tolerable fooleries" should not be tolerated; and though they were suffering for the truth, it was truth in lawn-sleeves and scapularies, or at least truth in a surplice, that they loved. These were two English exiles — Cox perhaps, and a colleague — honest and de- vout, yet not deep-seeing men, nor thoroughly abhor- rent of the "Popish dregs." But the genius loci was one whom no fooleries could captivate. His sharp and prominent profile spoke of penetrating acuteness. His clear and ever-glancing eye was one which could still the tumult of the people, as well as look in warm affection on the friends he loved. His countenance, LIFE OF CALVIN. 61 wasted and sicklied over with the paleness of thought and suffering, beamed with gentleness, while it could also express, as occasion demanded, the deepest emo- tions of man's soul. It was Calvin entertaining his friends in his study — regaling their souls with his wit as well as with his learning — the man [whom Europe has for centuries agreed to hate — whom all who knew him loved, idolized, and clung to like the ivy to the wall, or the vine tree to the elm. In a word, Calvin may be likened to Cato as a rigid censor; but his standard for censuring was that of God, while his errors were those of his age. The asperity of his language against Servetus, Castalio, Baldouin, and others, may be explained, but cannot be excused. Truest charity will lament it ; and while we bless God that such an one was given to the Churches — his conduct towards heretics reminds us that it is man we are admiring — the treasure was in an earthen vessel ; but how glorifying to God, that an earthen vessel should have achieved so much ! Finally, do we regard Calvin as a sufferer for righ- teousness' sake ? — He encountered what the Master whom he loved predicted — tribulation; it was some- times his only earthly portion. He proved that he was not of the world, else " the world would have loved its own." By the grace of God that was in him, be surpassed and subdued his antagonists, but in doing so, he earned the reward which the world, in every age, has allotted to those who seek to rescue it from perdition by beckoning it with faithful ear- nestness to the Saviour of the lost. C2 CALVIX AND SERVETUS. CHAPTER II. LIFE OF SERVETUS.* About the middle of the year 1553, a stranger Ox unprepossessing appearance entered Geneva, then ac- customed to see numerous refugees seeking the shelter , of its walls. To say that he fled from France, be- cause certain Popish judges had condemned him to the flames for heresy, would i;iot be to describe that stranger, but rather to confound him with the crowd of outlaws for whom innumerable funeral piles were then prepared in coimtries devoted tothefaith of Rome; but to say that, three months thereafter, that very man, outside thewalls of Geneva, died in the flames to which y\ the same crime of heresy had caused him to be con- 1 demned by Protestant magistratest — that is to name Servetus. His funeral pile is signalized only by the fact that, where it was reared, it appeared alone, ;{: but one might say, that, by a fatal destiny, Servetus ■* It is here that the translation from Rilliet begins. — Translator. 'f It will be noticed that Rilliet here indicates, at the very outset, •who it was that condemned Servetus — the Protestant magistrates of Geneva. — Tr. :J: Incidents will hereafter be mentioned which show that this is not literally correct. — Tr. LIFE OP SERVETUS. f)3 could not otherwise perish. Bom in Spain, the native country of the auto-da-fe^ he fled from it only to see his effigy consumed in a foreign land, by the torch of a Popish executioner, and at last to die in flames kindled by Calvinistic justice.* We now design to trace the details of this last event, confining ourselves strictly to an exposition of facts, as they have been discovered by a careful ana- lysis of the authentic and original papers used in the proceedings, as well as by the attentive study of the internal condition of Geneva, at the time of the trial. This double source of information, from which the different writers on this subject have not sufficiently drawn, has enabled us to reproduce, with greater fidelity than has hitherto been done, the details of the criminal prosecution undertaken against Michael Servetus, in the capital of the French Reformation.t A few words will suffice to convey to the reader all that he requires to know of the life of Servetus. Michael Serveto, called also Reves (such is the double name which he gives himself in his first work), was bom about the year 1 509 at Yillanova, in Arragon, in the diocese of Lerida. His father, who had pro- bably destined him for the Church, perceiving that he united to a decided taste for religious speculations, an avowed hostility to scholastic theology, feared that his * Suivez Servet partout ou il va. N'est-il pas singulier qu'il se rende insupportable en tons lieux, et qu'il se fasse chasser de par- tout ? — Biblioth. Raisonee, vol. i., p. 376. — Tr. ^ •f" See Appendix A. 64 CALYIN AND SERVETUS. son would, sooner or later, be found in the grasp of the Inquisition, owing to his tendency to quarrel, and therefore sent him, in the year 1528, to study law at the University of Toulouse. Servetus formed a con- nection in that city with some youths who had been attracted by the Lutheran innovations, and they in- duced him to study the Gospel along with them. Being himself promptly animated by the desire to share in the work of the Reformation, he quitted Toulouse, traversed Italy, where he saw Charles V. crowned (February 1530) — then took the road for Germany, to confer with the leaders of the religious movement, and fixed his residence at Bale, near the Reformer CEcolampadius. After having at first favourably welcomed Servetus, CEcolampadius discovered that he made the Reforma- tion consist not merely in rejecting the errors imputed to the Romish Church, but even in discarding a doctrine held to be essentially Christian by the preachers of the new faith — namely, the doctrine of the Trinity. This discovery immediately detached CEcolampadius from Servetus, and he experienced the same cold reception from Bucer and Capito, the Reformers of Strasburg. The isolation in which he was thus left did not dis- courage him, and he now sought adherents by becom- ing an author. In 1531, he published at Ilaguenau his book entitled Z)e Trinitatis Erroribus, jLibriYIl,,* * We have seen a copy of this work in the Bibliotheca Angelica at Rome. Its title is, De Trinitatis JSrrorib2cs, Lihri Septem. Per Michaelem Serveto, alias Reves^ ab Arragonia, Hispanum. — Tr, LIFE OF SERVETUS. 65 in which he attacked the doctrine of the Trinity as pro- fessed by both communions. In the following year he published another work, where he still maintains his views, and, moreover, exhibits his peculiar opinions upon some points of the controversy which divided the two Churches, between which he pretends to occupy an independent position. One sees the theories there appearing which he afterwards developed at length, and which affected the whole of Christianity.* These writings spread by degrees in Germany and Italy, where they were not without partisans. t Servetus encountered only more determined opposi- tion at Strasburg and Bale after the publication of his books ; and perceiving that his attempt was unsuccess- ful, he decided, for the time, to change both his profes- sion and his name. It was accordingly under that of Yilleneuve that he went to France, about the year 1 533, to devote himself to the study of medicine. At Paris he pursued it with brilliant success, J yet without losing sight of his religious speculations; and he even desired * A copy of this work is also in the Angelic Library at Rome, and it is thus marked in the catalogue : Liher iste ipsa raritate rarior. It is a neat octavo of ^6 pages, and the title is as follows : DialogoTum de Trinitate, Libri duo. Be Jmticia Pugni Christi, Capitula quatuor. Per Michaelem Serveto^ alias Eeves, ah A rra- (jonia Sispanum, Anno mdxxxii. — Tr. t Dr M'Crie thinks that the heterodox opinions which prevailed in Italy in the sixteenth century, were introduced by these writings of Servetus.— ^^25^. of Reform, in Itahj^ pp. 150, 151. See Melanc- thon's opinion, ibid. p. 152 : " L'on pouyoit peutetre assurer que les desputes anti-Trinitaires out arrete le progres de la Refor- mation." — Bihlioth. Angloise^ vol ii.,*P' 89. — Tr. X Sigmond, in a work entitled" Unnoticed Theories of Servetus," has a note from which it appears that the heretic gave " the first G6 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. to hold a conference -with Calvin on tlie subject of re- ligion, though circumstances occurred to prevent it. Urged by want, Servetus removed to Lyons in 1535, where he became a corrector of the press; and pub- lished, with characteristic notes, a good edition of the Geography of Ptolemy. Having subsequently returned to Paris in 1 537, he there taught geography, mathematics, and even astrology, with success. The last branch drcAv down upon him an accusation from the Sorbonne, and a sentence of the parliament ; upon which he again quitted Paris, and went to Charlieu, near Lyons, where he continued for two years to prac- tise his profession. At last he went, in the year 1540, to reside at Vienne, in Dauphine, where his protector, the Archbishop Pierre Paumier, had his residence. In that town, he was again employed in his profes- sion as a physician, and also upon some literary works for the booksellers of Lyons, who published a second edition of his Ptolemy, and a Latin Bible for which he had written the preface and notes. Indeed, far from renouncing theology, Servetus made all his studies bear upon it, and time had con- firmed his mind in the determination to urge on a restoration of Christianity more complete than that at which the Reformers had paused. As he had already sounded QEcolampadius, he next tried to ascertain the mind of Calvin, before attempting to realize his ob- ject ; and by the mediation of a third party, he put the Reformer in possession either of a new work which account of the circulation of the blood above seventy years before the immortal Harvey published his discovery." — Tr. LIFE OF SERVETUS. 67 Servetus proposed to publish, or of some theological / phemies and heresies as well as of murders and rob- beries, since crimes in matters of religion were not less important than in matters civil, nay, implied a culpability even greater than the latter, inasmuch asi the soul, the object of their attack, is of more im- portance than the body and physical life. " Such * Declaration^ p. 1388. v^ 90 CALTIN AND SERVETUS. / a diversity is not found in Scripture," says lie some- V where, " that one should estimate at a lower rate the injuries done to God than those which affect men."* N| Calvin did not comprehend, as men do now, the rela- ' tion between the Church and the State; for, although he assigned to each a sphere of action perfectly dis- tinct from that of the other, he, nevertheless, in the aggregate of social organization, admitted only of their mutual co-operation and their intimate union.f His whole system of ecclesiastical discipline is based on this double connection of divergence and of unity: in reference to heresy, we find the same opinion. The servant of the Church must denounce the heretic, and confute him theologically; but his condemnation is the exclusive function of the magistrate, one of whose most sacred duties is to pimish attacks made on the Divine Majesty. " It is most true," says Beza, " that when men were banded together against the doctrine of God which Calvin preached, he neglected nothing till he had caused the mockers of God to be treated as their demerits required, according to the holy laws which are here in force." "But," adds the biographer, "he * Declaration, p. 1321. ^ Rilliet here refers to the ecclesiastical Ordonnances of the city of Geneva issued in 1561. But Calvin's own conduct might have shovred him that the sweeping assertion in the text is not in accord- ance with fact. Calvin did struggle, and oflFered to die, rather than let the civil interfere with the spiritual. The opinion of his age reared him in the conviction, and kept him under the belief, that it was not a spiritual, but a civil thing, to repress heresy by the sword. — Tr. THE ARRESTMENT. 91 never judged any one, for that was not his office, and he never thought of doing it; and if his advice was asked, that was not to confound the offices which God had distinguished, but to be regulated according to the Word of the Lord."* The authority of that Word was not associated in the mind of the Reformer with the theory of free inquiry, as it has been since proclaimed. In ques- tions of faith, he did not at all admit of selection or independence, but tolerated only the reign of absolute truth, and, by consequence, unity of doctrine. Liber- ty, according to Calvin, was emancipation from error and submission to the truth, not promiscuousness of opinion, t " I reject," said he, in arguing against the parti- sans of toleration, " their favourite maxim, that we must suffer all kinds of disputes, because there is nothing certain or definite, but the Scripture is a nasus cerae^ so that the faith which all Christians hold concerning the Trinity, predestination, justifica- tion by free grace, are things indifferent, regarding which men may contend at pleasure.";}: Then, return- * Discours sur la Vie et Mort cfe Mr Johkn Calvin. + Rilliet means to say,^bat Calvin's view of Christian liberty was not such as to lead him to regard all religious opinions as equally sound, if sincerely held. He rejected that opinion as subver- sive of truth, and thus expressed himself on the subject : "Cum enim furta, coedes, rapinae severissime plectantur, quia ad homines injuria pertineat, connivetur interea ad scortatioues, adulteria, ebri- ositates, blasphemias nominis Dei tanquam ad res licitas, aut non ita graviter vindicandas. Atqui Deus longe aliter iis de rebus pro- nuntiat." — Calvin to Sommerset. See his Collected Letters. — Tr. J Letter of February 20, 15.55, in Henri/, IL, Beil., No. 2. (We ^ .'*»' 02 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. ing elsewhere to the same subject: "What will become of God and of Jesus Christ," said he, " if the doctrine is so uncertain and dubious? And what opprobrium is offered to God by saying that he has made his language in Scripture so tortuous that it is calculated only to mock men, and befool them? But, if we have not a certain and definite religfion in the Holy Scriptures, it will follow from that, that God has wished us to be occupied with one knows not how many fallacies, as if he spoke to us of fooleries. What remains for such people but to annihilate the Holy Scripture, that they may have a shorter way to imagine all that enters their head ? At all events, one clearly perceives that all mockers of God, and all the rebelUous against him, in denying that princes and magistrates should maintain the true religion by the sword, are pleading their own particular cause."* apprehend that in these few sentences the essence of the question regarding toleration, as viewed by the Reformers, will be found. They were afraid, amid the conflict of opinion which then prevailed, to let go, or seem to let go, the one unchallengeable standard — the Word of God. They held that it spoke with no uncertain sound upon the great doctrines which embody the mind of God regarding the souls of men, and could be parties to no transaction, or could abet no tenets which proceeded on the supposition that God's Word was not definite in its meaning, as well as authoritatively binding upon all that held it. The error, or rather the excess of Calvin's system, lay in admitting man's coercive power into the sphere where He alone presides who said : "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." — Te.) * Declaration, p. 1321. (In these sentences Calvin has said nearly all that even he could say for his cause ; and it is needless to add ex- tracts from other parts of his works, though they exist in abundance. He was right in pleading for the certainty and the definite conviction THE ARRESTMENT. 93" Calvin believed that he was pleading the cause of God and of the Gospel (which he confounded with his own), and, by consequence, fulfilling an impera- tive duty, in delivering Servetus to the secular arm ; but he had neglected to beware of " confounding the offices which God has distinguished," when he mixed himself up with the heretic's condemnation. " From the time he was convicted of his heresies," said Calvin, " I have made no endeavour to have his punishment made capital; and not merely all honest men will be witnesses of what I say, but I challenge all the maUgnants to say if it is not so." * In urging on the arrestment of Servetus, Calvin was satisfied with hoping that the sentence would be capital; but he afterwards desired to mitigate the horrors of his punishment, t The hope of Calvin was not disappointed, although its realization was not so prompt as he had perhaps desired. It must even have appeared to him doubt- ful oftener than once during the two months which of their truth which the Scriptures briug to the soul of a believer. (1 John V. 19.) That was one of the points which the Reformers were called on to maintain at once against practical unbelievers among Protestants and the "doubtsome faith" of Rome; and in maintain- ing it they had Scripture for their full and unequivocal warrant. See John vii. 17, compared with Ps. xxv. 14; Rom. viii. 16, 38. But the Reformers erred by excess, when, from defending the self- evidencing power of Scripture, they claimed for man the right, or laid on him the obligation, to punish those who did not thus see light in God's light.— Tr.) * Declaration^ p. 1318. + Epist. Calv. ad Farellum, 20 August, 1553 : " Spero capitale saltern judicium fore; pcense vero atrocitatem remitti cupio." 94 CALVIN AND SERVETUS. rolled away before pronouncing and executing the sentence of death. Indeed, even to the last moment, some might continue uncertain as to the closing scene of the tragedy, because the state of parties in Geneva transformed the affair of Servetus, as we have already seen, into a new episode in the struggle in which Calvin w'as engaged. Defeated upon other points, he would probably have received a similar check upon this, if his opinion had not been sup- ported by foreign authorities, and if the Council of Geneva, which would have resisted the Reformer, had not yielded to the Churches of Switzerland and the Government of Berne. In the meantime, Servetus had crossed the thres- hold of the ancient residence of the bishops of Geneva, transformed, after their expulsion, into an abode for prisoners; and in ordering his temporary arrestment, the Lord Syndic had only performed his duty. But that the prisoner might not be immediately released for want of charges against him, the judge was bound to institute a criminal accusation ; and, with that design, to observe the formalities required by the Edicts. These appointed that, in every accusation im- plying corporeal punishment, the accuser must be- come a prisoner along with the accused, in order that, in the event of the charge proving false, the former might undergo the punishment to which the guilty was exposed.* Calvin could not shut himself up in * " Let the Lieutenant have power of imprisoning, at the re- quest of every one who will make himself a formal party against another, by becoming a prisoner along with him." — Edict of 12th THE ARRESTMENT. 95 a jail with Servetus, but intrusted it to the care of another to become his accuser ; and this he never conceals. On the contrary, he says : " I do not dis- semble that it was by ray advice that he was appre- hended in this city, to render an account of his evil deeds. Let the malevolent or the slanderous babble against me as much as they please, it is as I frankly declare — as, according to the laws and customs of the city, no one could be imprisoned for a crime with- out a party to accuse, or without information pre- viously lodged, to bring such a man to reason, I took measures to obtain a party to accuse him." * The person employed to become in this manner a " criminal party," against the Spaniard, was a disciple of the Reformer, a Frenchman, named Nicolas de la Fontaine, and employed, it would appear, as Calvin's private secretary. It should be remarked, that in this trial, with which the name of Geneva is now for ever connected, the accused as well as the accusers were foreigners. When Servetus was imprisoned by order of the Syndic, the Lord- Lieutenant, Pierre Tissot, was in- formed, according to the Edicts.f On the same day, N