Chapter III: American (10)

Francis I., desirous to continue the suppression of the Protestants but anxious, because of his strife with Charles V., not to break with the Protestant princes of Germany, instructed his ambassador to assure these princes that it was only against Anabaptists, and other parties who called in question all civil magistracy, that his severities were exercised. Calvin, indignant at the calumny which was thus cast upon the reformed party in France, hastily prepared for the press his _Institutes of the Christian Religion_, which he published "first that I might vindicate from unjust affront my brethren whose death was precious in the sight of the Lord, and, next, that some sorrow and anxiety should move foreign peoples, since the same sufferings threatened many." The work was dedicated to the king, and Calvin says he wrote it in Latin that it might find access to the learned in all lands.[6] Soon after it appeared he set about translating it into French, as he himself attests in a letter dated October 1536. This sets at rest a question, at one time much agitated, whether the book appeared first in French or in Latin. The earliest French edition known is that of 1540, and this was after the work had been much enlarged, and several Latin editions had appeared. In its first form the work consisted of only six chapters, and was intended merely as a brief manual of Christian doctrine. The chapters follow a traditional scheme of religious teaching: (1) The Law, (as in the Ten Words), (2) Faith (as in the Apostles' Creed) (3) Prayer, (4) the Sacraments; to these were added (5) False Sacraments, (6) Christian liberty, ecclesiastical power and civil administration. The closing chapters of the work are more polemical than the earlier ones. His indebtedness to Luther is of course great, but his spiritual kinship with Martin Bucer of Strassburg is even more marked. Something also he owed to Scotus and other medieval schoolmen. The book appeared anonymously, the author having, as he himself says, nothing in view beyond furnishing a statement of the faith of the persecuted Protestants, whom he saw cruelly cut to pieces by impious and perfidious court parasites.[7] In this work, though produced when the author was only twenty-six years of age, we find a complete outline of the Calvinist theological system. In none of the later editions, nor in any of his later works do we find reason to believe that he ever changed his views on any essential point from what they were at the period of its first publication. Such an instance of maturity of mind and of opinion at so early an age would be remarkable under any circumstances; but in Calvin's case it is rendered peculiarly so by the shortness of the time which had elapsed since he gave himself to theological studies. It may be doubted also if the history of literature presents us with another instance of a book written at so early an age, which has exercised such a prodigious influence upon the opinions and practices both of contemporaries and of posterity.

After a short visit (April 1536) to the court of Renee, duchess of Ferrara (cousin to Margaret of Navarre), which at that time afforded an asylum to several learned and pious fugitives from persecution, Calvin returned through Basel to France to arrange his affairs before finally taking farewell of his native country. His intention was to settle at Strassburg or Basel, and to devote himself to study. But being unable, in consequence of the war between Francis I. and Charles V., to reach Strassburg by the ordinary route, he with his younger brother Antoine and his half-sister Marie journeyed to Lyons and so to Geneva, making for Basel. In Geneva his progress was arrested, and his resolution to pursue the quiet path of studious research was dispelled by what he calls the "formidable obtestation" of Guillaume Farel.[8] After many struggles and no small suffering, this energetic spirit had succeeded in planting the evangelical standard at Geneva; and anxious to secure the aid of such a man as Calvin, he entreated him on his arrival to relinquish his design of going farther, and to devote himself to the work in that city. Calvin at first declined, alleging as an excuse his need of securing more time for personal improvement, but ultimately, believing that he was divinely called to this task and that "God had stretched forth His hand upon me from on high to arrest me," he consented to remain at Geneva. He hurried to Basel, transacted some business, and returned to Geneva in August 1536. He at once began to expound the epistles of St Paul in the church of St Pierre, and after about a year was also elected preacher by the magistrates with the consent of the people, an office which he would not accept until it had been repeatedly pressed upon him. His services seem to have been rendered for some time gratuitously, for in February 1537 there is an entry in the city registers to the effect that six crowns had been voted to him, "since he has as yet hardly received anything."

Calvin was in his twenty-eighth year when he was thus constrained to settle at Geneva; and in this city the rest of his life, with the exception of a brief interval, was spent. The post to which he was thus called was not an easy one. Though the people of Geneva had cast off the obedience of Rome, it was largely a political revolt against the duke of Savoy, and they were still (says Beza) "but very imperfectly enlightened in divine knowledge; they had as yet hardly emerged from the filth of the papacy."[9] This laid them open to the incursions of those fanatical teachers, whom the excitement attendant upon the Reformation had called forth, and who hung mischievously upon the rear of the reforming body. To obviate the evils thence resulting, Calvin, in union with Farel, drew up a condensed statement of Christian doctrine consisting of twenty-one articles. This the citizens were summoned, in parties of ten each, to profess and swear to as the confession of their faith--a process which, though not in accordance with modern notions of the best way of establishing men in the faith, was gone through, Calvin tells us, "with much satisfaction." As the people took this oath in the capacity of _citizens_, we may see here the basis laid for that theocratic system which subsequently became peculiarly characteristic of the Genevan polity. Deeply convinced of the importance of education for the young, Calvin and his coadjutors were solicitous to establish schools throughout the city, and to enforce on parents the sending of their children to them; and as he had no faith in education apart from religious training, he drew up a catechism of Christian doctrine which the children had to learn whilst they were receiving secular instruction. Of the troubles which arose from fanatical teachers, the chief proceeded from the efforts of the Anabaptists; a public disputation was held on the 16th and 17th of March 1537, and so excited the populace that the Council of Two Hundred stopped it, declared the Anabaptists vanquished and drove them from the city. About the same time also, the peace of Calvin and his friends was much disturbed and their work interrupted by Pierre Caroli, another native of northern France, who, though a man of loose principle and belief, had been appointed chief pastor at Lausanne and was discrediting the good work done by Pierre Viret in that city. Calvin went to Viret's aid and brought Caroli before the commissioners of Bern on a charge of advocating prayers for the dead as a means of their earlier resurrection. Caroli brought a counter-charge against the Geneva divines of Sabellianism and Arianism, because they would not enforce the Athanasian creed, and had not used the words "Trinity" and "Person" in the confession they had drawn up. It was a struggle between the thoroughgoing humanistic reformer who drew his creed solely from the "word of God" and the merely semi-Protestant reformer who looked on the old creed as a priceless heritage. In a synod held at Bern the matter was fully discussed, when a verdict was given in favour of the Geneva divines, and Caroli deposed from his office and banished. He returned to France, rejoined the Roman communion and spent the rest of his life in passing to and from the old faith and the new. Thus ended an affair which seems to have occasioned Calvin much more uneasiness than the character of his assailant, and the manifest falsehood of the charge brought against him, would seem to justify. Two brief anti-Romanist tracts, one entitled _De fugiendis impiorum sacris_, the other _De sacerdotio papali abjiciendo_, were also published early in this year.

Hardly was the affair of Caroli settled, when new and severer trials came upon the Genevan Reformers. The austere simplicity of the ritual which Farel had introduced, and to which Calvin had conformed; the strictness with which the ministers sought to enforce not only the laws of morality, but certain sumptuary regulations respecting the dress and mode of living of the citizens; and their determination in spiritual matters and ecclesiastical ceremonies not to submit to the least dictation from the civil power, led to violent dissensions. Amidst much party strife Calvin perhaps showed more youthful impetuosity than experienced skill. He and his colleagues refused to administer the sacrament in the Bernese form, i.e. with unleavened bread, and on Easter Sunday, 1538, declined to do so at all because of the popular tumult. For this they were banished from the city. They went first to Bern, and soon after to Zurich, where a synod of the Swiss pastors had been convened. Before this assembly they pleaded their cause, and stated what were the points on which they were prepared to insist as needful for the proper discipline of the church. They declared that they would yield in the matter of ceremonies so far as to employ unleavened bread in the eucharist, to use fonts in baptism, and to allow festival days, provided the people might pursue their ordinary avocations after public service. These Calvin regarded as matters of indifference, provided the magistrates did not make them of importance, by seeking to enforce them; and he was the more willing to concede them, because he hoped thereby to meet the wishes of the Bernese brethren whose ritual was less simple than that established by Farel at Geneva. But he and his colleagues insisted, on the other hand that for the proper maintenance of discipline, there should be a division of parishes--that excommunications should be permitted, and should be under the power of elders chosen by the council, in conjunction with the clergy--that order should be observed in the admission of preachers--and that only the clergy should officiate in ordination by the laying on of hands. It was proposed also, as conducive to the welfare of the church, that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper should be administered more frequently, at least once every month, and that congregational singing of psalms should be practised in the churches. On these terms the synod interceded with the Genevese to restore their pastors; but through the opposition of some of the Bernese (especially Peter Kuntz, the pastor of that city) this was frustrated, and a second edict of banishment was the only response.

Calvin and Farel betook themselves, under these circumstances, to Basel, where they soon after separated, Farel to go to Neuchatel and Calvin to Strassburg. At the latter place Calvin resided till the autumn of 1541, occupying himself partly in literary exertions, partly as a preacher and especially an organizer in the French church, and partly as a lecturer on theology. These years were not the least valuable in his experience. In 1539 he attended Charles V.'s conference on Christian reunion at Frankfort as the companion of Bucer, and in the following year he appeared at Hagenau and Worms, as the delegate from the city of Strassburg. He was present also at the diet at Regensburg, where he deepened his acquaintance with Melanchthon, and formed with him a friendship which lasted through life. He also did something to relieve the persecuted Protestants of France. It is to this period of his life that we owe a revised and enlarged form of his _Institutes_, his _Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans_, and his _Tract on the Lord's Supper_. Notwithstanding his manifold engagements, he found time to attend to the tenderer affections; for it was during his residence at Strassburg that he married, in August 1540, Idelette de Bure, the widow of one Jean Stordeur of Liege, whom he had converted from Anabaptism. In her Calvin found, to use his own words, "the excellent companion of his life," a "precious help" to him amid his manifold labours and frequent infirmities. She died in 1549, to the great grief of her husband, who never ceased to mourn her loss. Their only child Jacques, born on the 28th of July 1542, lived only a few days.

During Calvin's absence disorder and irreligion had prevailed in Geneva. An attempt was made by Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto (1477-1547), bishop of Carpentras, to take advantage of this so as to restore the papal supremacy in that district; but this design Calvin, at the request of the Bernese authorities, who had been consulted by those of Geneva, completely frustrated, by writing such a reply to the letter which the bishop had addressed to the Genevese, as constrained him to desist from all further efforts. The letter had more than a local or temporary reference. It was a popular yet thoroughgoing defence of the whole Protestant position, perhaps the best apologia for the Reformation that was ever written. He seems also to have kept up his connexion with Geneva by addressing letters of counsel and comfort to the faithful there who continued to regard him with affection. It was whilst he was still at Strassburg that there appeared at Geneva a translation of the Bible into French, bearing Calvin's name, but in reality only revised and corrected by him from the version of Olivetan. Meanwhile the way was opening for his return. Those who had driven him from the city gradually lost power and office. Farel worked unceasingly for his recall. After much hesitation, for Strassburg had strong claims, he yielded and returned to Geneva, where he was received with the utmost enthusiasm (September 13, 1541). He entered upon his work with a firm determination to carry out those reforms which he had originally purposed, and to set up in all its integrity that form of church polity which he had carefully matured during his residence at Strassburg. He now became the sole directive spirit in the church at Geneva. Farel was retained by the Neuchatelois, and Viret, soon after Calvin's return, removed to Lausanne. His duties were thus rendered exceedingly onerous, and his labour became excessive. Besides preaching every day in each alternate week, he taught theology three days in the week, attended weekly meetings of his consistory, read the Scriptures once a week in the congregation, carried on an extensive correspondence on a multiplicity of subjects, prepared commentaries on the books of Scripture, and was engaged repeatedly in controversy with the opponents of his opinions. "I have not time," he writes to a friend, "to look out of my house at the blessed sun, and if things continue thus I shall forget what sort of appearance it has. When I have settled my usual business, I have so many letters to write, so many questions to answer, that many a night is spent without any offering of sleep being brought to nature."

It is only necessary here to sketch the leading events of Calvin's life after his return to Geneva. He recodified the Genevan laws and constitution, and was the leading spirit in the negotiations with Bern that issued in the treaty of February 1544. Of the controversies in which he embarked, one of the most important was that in which he defended his doctrine concerning predestination and election. His first antagonist on this head was Albert Pighius, a Romanist, who, resuming the controversy between Erasmus and Luther on the freedom of the will, violently attacked Calvin for the views he had expressed on that subject. Calvin replied to him in a work published in 1543, in which he defends his own opinions at length, both by general reasonings and by an appeal to both Scripture and the Fathers, especially Augustine. So potent were his reasonings that Pighius, though owing nothing to the gentleness or courtesy of Calvin, was led to embrace his views. A still more vexatious and protracted controversy on the same subject arose in 1551. Jerome Hermes Bolsec, a Carmelite friar, having renounced Romanism, had fled from France to Veigy, a village near Geneva, where he practised as a physician. Being a zealous opponent of predestinarian views, he expressed his criticisms of Calvin's teaching on the subject in one of the public conferences held each Friday. Calvin replied with much vehemence, and brought the matter before the civil authorities. The council were at a loss which course to take; not that they doubted which of the disputants was right, for they all held by the views of Calvin, but they were unable to determine to what extent and in which way Bolsec should be punished for his heresy. The question was submitted to the churches at Basel, Bern, Zurich and Neuchatel, but they also, to Calvin's disappointment, were divided in their judgment, some counselling severity, others gentle measures. In the end Bolsec was banished from Geneva; he ultimately rejoined the Roman communion and in 1577 avenged himself by a particularly slanderous biography of Calvin. Another painful controversy was that with Sebastien Castellio (1515-1563), a teacher in the Genevan school and a scholar of real distinction. He wished to enter the preaching ministry but was excluded by Calvin's influence because he had criticized the inspiration of the Song of Solomon and the Genevan interpretation of the clause "he descended into hell." The bitterness thus aroused developed into life-long enmity. During all this time also the less strict party in the city and in the council did not cease to harry the reformer.

But the most memorable of all the controversies in which Calvin was engaged was that into which he was brought in 1553 with Michael Servetus (q.v.). After many wanderings, and after having been condemned to death for heresy at Vienne, whence he was fortunate enough to make his escape, Servetus arrived in August 1553 at Geneva on his way to Naples. He was recognized in church and soon after, at Calvin's instigation, arrested. The charge of blasphemy was founded on certain statements in a book published by him in 1553, entitled _Christianismi Restitutio_, in which he animadverted on the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, and advanced sentiments strongly savouring of Pantheism. The story of his trial is told elsewhere (see art. SERVETUS), but it must be noted here that the struggle was something more than a doctrinal one. The cause of Servetus was taken up by Calvin's Genevan foes headed by Philibert Berthelier, and became a test of the relative strength of the rival forces and of the permanence of Calvin's control. That Calvin was actuated by personal spite and animosity against Servetus himself may be open to discussion; we have his own express declaration that, after Servetus was convicted, he used no urgency that he should be put to death, and at their last interview he told Servetus that he never had avenged private injuries, and assured him that if he would repent it would not be his fault if all the pious did not give him their hands.[10] There is the fact also that Calvin used his endeavour to have the sentence which had been pronounced against Servetus mitigated, death by burning being regarded by him as an "atrocity," for which he sought to substitute death by the sword.[11] It can be justly charged against Calvin in this matter that he took the initiative in bringing on the trial of Servetus, that as his accuser he prosecuted the suit against him with undue severity, and that he approved the sentence which condemned Servetus to death. When, however, it is remembered that the unanimous decision of the Swiss churches and of the Swiss state governments was that Servetus deserved to die; that the general voice of Christendom was in favour of this; that even such a man as Melanchthon affirmed the justice of the sentence;[12] that an eminent English divine of the next age should declare the process against him "just and honourable,"[13] and that only a few voices here and there were at the time raised against it, many will be ready to accept the judgment of Coleridge, that the death of Servetus was not "Calvin's guilt especially, but the common opprobrium of all European Christendom."[14]

Calvin was also involved in a protracted and somewhat vexing dispute with the Lutherans respecting the Lord's Supper, which ended in the separation of the evangelical party into the two great sections of Lutherans and Reformed,--the former holding that in the eucharist the body and blood of Christ are objectively and consubstantially present, and so are actually partaken of by the communicants, and the latter that there is only a virtual presence of the body and blood of Christ, and consequently only a spiritual participation thereof through faith. In addition to these controversies on points of faith, he was for many years greatly disquieted, and sometimes even endangered, by the opposition offered by the libertine party in Geneva to the ecclesiastical discipline which he had established there. His system of church polity was essentially theocratic; it assumed that every member of the state was also under the discipline of the church; and he asserted that the right of exercising this discipline was vested exclusively in the consistory or body of preachers and elders. His attempts to carry out these views brought him into collision both with the authorities and with the populace,--the latter being not unnaturally restive under the restraints imposed upon their liberty by the vigorous system of church discipline, and the former being inclined to retain in their own hands a portion of that power in things spiritual which Calvin was bent on placing exclusively in the hands of the church rulers. His dauntless courage, his perseverance, and his earnestness at length prevailed, and he had the satisfaction, before he died, of seeing his favourite system of church polity firmly established, not only at Geneva, but in other parts of Switzerland, and of knowing that it had been adopted substantially by the Reformers in France and Scotland. The men whom he trained at Geneva carried his principles into almost every country in Europe, and in varying degree these principles did much for the cause of civil liberty.[15] Nor was it only in religious matters that Calvin busied himself; nothing was indifferent to him that concerned the welfare and good order of the state or the advantage of its citizens. His work embraced everything; he was consulted on every affair, great and small, that came before the council,--on questions of law, police, economy, trade, and manufactures, no less than on questions of doctrine and church polity. To him the city owed her trade in cloths and velvets, from which so much wealth accrued to her citizens; sanitary regulations were introduced by him which made Geneva the admiration of all visitors; and in him she reverences the founder of her university. This institution was in a sense Calvin's crowning work. It added religious education to the evangelical preaching and the thorough discipline already established, and so completed the reformer's ideal of a Christian commonwealth.

Amidst these multitudinous cares and occupations, Calvin found time to write a number of works besides those provoked by the various controversies in which he was engaged. The most numerous of these were of an exegetical character. Including discourses taken down from his lips by faithful auditors, we have from him expository comments or homilies on nearly all the books of Scripture, written partly in Latin and partly in French. Though naturally knowing nothing of the modern idea of a progressive revelation, his judiciousness, penetration, and tact in eliciting his author's meaning, his precision, condensation, and concinnity as an expositor, the accuracy of his learning, the closeness of his reasoning, and the elegance of his style, all unite to confer a high value on his exegetical works. The series began with _Romans_ in 1540 and ended with _Joshua_ in 1564. In 1558-1559 also, though in very ill health, he finally perfected the Institutes.

The incessant and exhausting labours to which Calvin gave himself could not but tell on his fragile constitution. Amid many sufferings, however, and frequent attacks of sickness, he manfully pursued his course; nor was it till his frail body, torn by many and painful diseases--fever, asthma, stone, and gout, the fruits for the most part of his sedentary habits and unceasing activity--had, as it were, fallen to pieces around him, that his indomitable spirit relinquished the conflict. In the early part of the year 1564 his sufferings became so severe that it was manifest his earthly career was rapidly drawing to a close. On the 6th of February of that year he preached his last sermon, having with great difficulty found breath enough to carry him through it. He was several times after this carried to church, but never again was able to take any part in the service. With his usual disinterestedness he refused to receive his stipend, now that he was no longer able to discharge the duties of his office. In the midst of his sufferings, however, his zeal and energy kept him in continual occupation; when expostulated with for such unseasonable toil, he replied, "Would you that the Lord should find me idle when He comes?" After he had retired from public labours he lingered for some months, enduring the severest agony without a murmur, and cheerfully attending to all the duties of a private kind which his diseases left him strength to discharge. On the 25th of April he made his will, on the 27th he received the Little Council, and on the 28th the Genevan ministers, in his sick-room; on the 2nd of May he wrote his last letter--to his old comrade Farel, who hastened from Neuchatel to see him once again. He spent much time in prayer and died quietly, in the arms of his faithful friend Theodore Beza, on the evening of the 27th of May, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. The next day he was buried without pomp "in the common cemetery called Plain-palais" in a spot not now to be identified.

Calvin was of middle stature; his complexion was somewhat pallid and dark; his eyes, to the latest clear and lustrous, bespoke the acumen of his genius. He was sparing in his food and simple in his dress; he took but little sleep, and was capable of extraordinary efforts of intellectual toil. He had a most retentive memory and a very keen power of observation. He spoke without rhetoric, simply, directly, but with great weight. He had many acquaintances but few close friends. His private character was in harmony with his public reputation and position. If somewhat severe and irritable, he was at the same time scrupulously just, truthful, and steadfast; he never deserted a friend or took an unfair advantage of an antagonist; and on befitting occasions he could be cheerful and even facetious among his intimates. "God gave him," said the Little Council after his death, "a character of great majesty." "I have been a witness of him for sixteen years," says Beza, "and I think I am fully entitled to say that in this man there was exhibited to all an example of the life and death of the Christian, such as it will not be easy to depreciate, such as it will be difficult to emulate."

Though Calvin built his theology on the foundations laid by earlier
reformers, and especially by Luther and Bucer, his peculiar gifts of
learning, of logic and of style made him pre-eminently the theologian
of the new religion. The following may be regarded as his
characteristic tenets, though not all are peculiar to him.

The dominant thought is the infinite and transcendent sovereignty of
God, to know whom is the supreme end of human endeavour. God is made
known to man especially by the Scriptures, whose writers were "sure
and authentic amanuenses of the Holy Spirit." To the Spirit speaking
therein the Spirit-illumined soul of man makes response. While God is
the source of all good, man as a sinner is guilty and corrupt. The
first man was made in the image and likeness of God, which not only
implies man's superiority to all other creatures, but indicates his
original purity, integrity and sanctity. From this state Adam fell,
and in his fall involved the whole human race descended from him.
Hence depravity and corruption, diffused through all parts of the
soul, attach to all men, and this first makes them obnoxious to the
anger of God, and then comes forth in works which the Scripture calls
works of the flesh (Gal. v. 19). Thus all are held vitiated and
perverted in all parts of their nature, and on account of such
corruption deservedly condemned before God, by whom nothing is
accepted save righteousness innocence, and purity. Nor is that a being
bound for another's offence; for when it is said that we through
Adam's sin have become obnoxious to the divine judgment, it is not to
be taken as if we, being ourselves innocent and blameless, bear the
fault of his offence, but that, we having been brought under a curse
through his transgression, he is said to have bound us. From him,
however, not only has punishment overtaken us, but a pestilence
instilled from him resides in us, to which punishment is justly due.
Thus even infants, whilst they bring their own condemnation with them
from their mother's womb, are bound not by another's but by their own
fault. For though they have not yet brought forth the fruits of their
iniquity, they have the seed shut up in them; nay, their whole nature
is a sort of seed of sin, therefore it cannot but be hateful and
abominable to God (_Instit._ bk. ii, ch. i. sect. 8).

To redeem man from this state of guilt, and to recover him from
corruption, the Son of God became incarnate, assuming man's nature
into union with His own, so that in Him were two natures in one
person. Thus incarnate He took on Him the offices of prophet, priest
and king, and by His humiliation, obedience and suffering unto death,
followed by His resurrection and ascension to heaven, He has perfected
His work and fulfilled all that was required in a redeemer of men, so
that it is truly affirmed that He has merited for man the grace of
salvation (bk. ii. ch. 13-17). But until a man is in some way really
united to Christ so as to partake of Him, the benefits of Christ's
work cannot be attained by him. Now it is by the secret and special
operation of the Holy Spirit that men are united to Christ and made
members of His body. Through faith, which is a firm and certain
cognition of the divine benevolence towards us founded on the truth of
the gracious promise in Christ, men are by the operation of the Spirit
united to Christ and are made partakers of His death and resurrection,
so that the old man is crucified with Him and they are raised to a new
life, a life of righteousness and holiness. Thus joined to Christ the
believer has life in Him and knows that he is saved, having the
witness of the Spirit that he is a child of God, and having the
promises, the certitude of which the Spirit had before impressed on
the mind, sealed by the same Spirit on the heart (bk. iii. ch. 33-36).
From faith proceeds repentance, which is the turning of our life to
God, proceeding from a sincere and earnest fear of God, and consisting
in the mortification of the flesh and the old man within us and a
vivification of the Spirit. Through faith also the believer receives
justification, his sins are forgiven, he is accepted of God, and is
held by Him as righteous, the righteousness of Christ being imputed to
him, and faith being the instrument by which the man lays hold on
Christ, so that with His righteousness the man appears in God's sight
as righteous. This imputed righteousness, however, is not disjoined
from real personal righteousness, for regeneration and sanctification
come to the believer from Christ no less than justification; the two
blessings are not to be confounded, but neither are they to be
disjoined. The assurance which the believer has of salvation he
receives from the operation and witness of the Holy Spirit; but this
again rests on the divine choice of the man to salvation; and this
falls back on God's eternal sovereign purpose, whereby He has
predestined some to eternal life while the rest of mankind are
predestined to condemnation and eternal death. Those whom God has
chosen to life He effectually calls to salvation, and they are kept by
Him in progressive faith and holiness unto the end (bk. iii.
_passim_). The external means or aids by which God unites men into the
fellowship of Christ, and sustains and advances those who believe, are
the church and its ordinances, especially the sacraments. The church
universal is the multitude gathered from diverse nations, which though
divided by distance of time and place, agree in one common faith, and
it is bound by the tie of the same religion; and wherever the word of
God is sincerely preached, and the sacraments are duly administered,
according to Christ's institute, there beyond doubt is a church of
the living God (bk. iv. ch. 1, sect. 7-11). The permanent officers in
the church are pastors and teachers, to the former of whom it belongs
to preside over the discipline of the church, to administer the
sacraments, and to admonish and exhort the members; while the latter
occupy themselves with the exposition of Scripture, so that pure and
wholesome doctrine may be retained. With them are to be joined for the
government of the church certain pious, grave and holy men as a senate
in each church; and to others, as deacons, is to be entrusted the care
of the poor. The election of the officers in a church is to be with
the people, and those duly chosen and called are to be ordained by the
laying on of the hands of the pastors (ch. 3, sect. 4-16). The
sacraments are two--Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Baptism is the sign
of initiation whereby men are admitted into the society of the church
and, being grafted into Christ, are reckoned among the sons of God; it
serves both for the confirmation of faith and as a confession before
men. The Lord's Supper is a spiritual feast where Christ attests that
He is the life-giving bread, by which our souls are fed unto true and
blessed immortality. That sacred communication of His flesh and blood
whereby Christ transfuses into us His life, even as if it penetrated
into our bones and marrow, He in the Supper attests and seals; and
that not by a vain or empty sign set before us but there He puts forth
the efficacy of His Spirit whereby He fulfils what He promises. In the
mystery of the Supper Christ is truly exhibited to us by the symbols
of bread and wine; and so His body and blood, in which He fulfilled
all obedience for the obtaining of righteousness for us, are
presented. There is no such presence of Christ in the Supper as that
He is affixed to the bread or included in it or in any way
circumscribed; but whatever can express the true and substantial
communication of the body and blood of the Lord, which is exhibited to
believers under the said symbols of the Supper, is to be received, and
that not as perceived by the imagination only or mental intelligence,
but as enjoyed for the aliment of the eternal life (bk. iv. ch. 15,
17).

The course of time has substantially modified many of these positions.
Even the churches which trace their descent from Calvin's work and
faith no longer hold in their entirety his views on the magistrate as
the preserver of church purity, the utter depravity of human nature,
the non-human character of the Bible, the dealing of God with man. But
his system had an immense value in the history of Christian thought.
It appealed to and evoked a high order of intelligence, and its
insistence on personal individual salvation has borne worthy fruit. So
also its insistence on the chief end of man "to know and do the will
of God" made for the strenuous morality that helped to build up the
modern world. Its effects are most clearly seen in Scotland, in
Puritan England and in the New England states, but its influence was
and is felt among peoples that have little desire or claim to be
called Calvinist.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The standard edition of Calvin's works is that
undertaken by the Strassburg scholars, J.W. Bauin, E. Cunitz, E.
Reuss, P. Lobstein, A. Erichson (59 vols., 1863-1900). The last of
these contains an elaborate bibliography which was also published
separately at Berlin in 1900. The bulk of the writings was published
in English by the Calvin Translation Society (48 vols., Edinburgh,
1843-1855); the _Institutes_ have often been translated. The early
lives by Beza and Collodon are given in the collected editions. Among
modern biographies are those by P. Henry, _Das Leben J. Calvins_ (3
vols., Hamburg, 1835-1844; Eng. trans, by H. Stebbing, London and New
York, 1849); V. Audin, _Histoire de la vie, des ouvrages, et des
doctrines de Calvin_ (2 vols., Paris, 1841; Eng. trans, by J. McGill,
London, 1843 and 1850) unfairly antagonistic; T.H. Dyer, _Life of John
Calvin_ (London, 1850); E. Stahelin_, Joh. Calvin, Leben und
ausgewahlte Schriften_ (2 vols., Elberfeld, 1863); F.W. Kampschulte,
_Joh. Calvin, seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf_ (2 vols., 1869,
1899, unfinished); Abel Lefranc, _La Jeunesse de Calvin_ (Paris,
1888); E. Choisy, _La Theocratie a Geneve au temps de Calvin_ (Geneva,
1897); E. Doumergue, _Jean Calvin; les hommes et les choses de son
temps_ (5 vols., 1899-1908). See also A.M. Fairbairn, "Calvin and the
Reformed Church" in the _Cambridge Modern History_, vol. ii. (1904);
P. Schaff's, _History of the Christian Church_, vol. vii. (1892), and
R. Stahelin's article in Hauck-Herzog's _Real-encyk. fur prot.
Theologie und Kirche._ Each of these contains a useful bibliography,
as also does the excellent life by Professor Williston Walker, _John
Calvin, the Organizer of Reformed Protestantism_, "Heroes of the
Reformation" series (1906). See also C.S. Horne in _Mansfield Coll.
Essays_ (1909). (W. L. A.; A. J. G.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The family name of Calvin seems to have been written
indifferently Cauvin, Chauve, Chauvin, Calvus, Calvinus. In the
contemporary notices of Gerard and his family, in the capitular
registers of the cathedral at Noyon, the name is always spelt Cauuin.
The anagram of Calvin is Alcuin, and this in its Latinized form
Alcuinus appears in two editions of his _Instltutio_ as that of the
author (Audin, _Vie de Calvin_, i. 520). The syndics of Geneva
address him in a letter written in 1540, and still preserved, as
"Docteur Caulvin." In his letters written in French he usually signs
himself "Jean Calvin." He affected the title of "Maitre," for what
reason is not known.

[2] Pierre de Montaigu refounded this institution in 1388. Erasmus
and Ignatius Loyola also studied here.

[3] Calv. _Praef. ad Comment. in Psalmos._

[4] _Jo. Calvini Vita, sub init._

[5] _Epist. Ded., Comment in Ep. II. ad Corinthios praefix._

[6] This edition forms a small 8vo of 514 pages, and 6 pages of
index. It appeared at Basel from the press of Thomas Platter and
Balthasar Lasius in March 1536, and was published by Johann Oporin.
The dedicatory preface is dated 23rd August 1535. It is a masterpiece
of apologetic literature. See W. Walker, _John Calvin_, 132 f., and
for an outline of the contents of the treatise, ib. 137-149.

[7] _Praef. ad Psalmos._

[8] _Ibid._

[9] Beza, _Vit. Calv. an. 1536._

[10] Fidelis Expositio Errorum Serveti, _sub init._ Calvini, _Opp_.
t. ix.

[11] Calvin to Farel, 20th Aug. 1553.

[12] Tuo judicio prorsus assentior. Affirmo etiam vestros magistratus
juste fecisse quod hominem blasphemum, re ordine judicata,
interfecerunt.--Melanchthon to Calvin, 14th Oct. 1554.

[13] Field _On the Church_, bk. iii. c. 27, vol. i. p. 288 (ed.
Cambridge, 1847).

[14] _Notes on English Divines_, vol. i. p. 49. See also _Table
Talk_, vol. ii. p. 282 (ed. 1835).

[15] W. Walker, _John Calvin_, pp. 403-8.

CALVINISTIC METHODISTS, a body of Christians forming a church of the Presbyterian order and claiming to be the only denomination in Wales which is of purely Welsh origin. Its beginnings may be traced to the labours of the Rev. Griffith Jones (1684-1761), of Llanddowror, Carmarthenshire, whose sympathy for the poor led him to set on foot a system of circulating charity schools for the education of children. In striking contrast to the general apathy of the clergy of the period, Griffith Jones's zeal appealed to the public imagination, and his powerful preaching exercised a widespread influence, many travelling long distances in order to attend his ministry. There was thus a considerable number of earnest people dispersed throughout the country waiting for the rousing of the parish clergy. An impressive announcement of the Easter Communion Service, made by the Rev. Pryce Davies, vicar of Talgarth, on the 30th of March 1735, was the means of awakening Howell Harris (1714-1773) of Trevecca, and he immediately began to hold services in his own house. He was soon invited to do the same at the houses of others, and ended by becoming a fiery itinerant preacher, stirring to the depths every neighbourhood he visited. Griffith Jones, preaching at Llanddewi Brefi, Cardiganshire--the place at which the Welsh Patron Saint, David, first became famous--found Daniel Rowland (1713-1790), curate of Llangeitho, in his audience, and his patronizing attitude in listening drew from the preacher a personal supplication on his behalf, in the middle of the discourse. Rowland was deeply moved, and became an ardent apostle of the new movement. Naturally a fine orator, his new-born zeal gave an edge to his eloquence, and his fame spread abroad. Rowland and Harris had been at work fully eighteen months before they met, at a service in Devynock church, in the upper part of Breconshire. The acquaintance then formed lasted to the end of Harris's life--an interval of ten years excepted. Harris had been sent to Oxford in the autumn of 1735 to "cure him of his fanaticism," but he left in the following February. Rowland had never been to a university, but, like Harris, he had been well grounded in general knowledge. About 1739 another prominent figure appeared. This was Howell Davies of Pembrokeshire, whose ministry was modelled on that of his master, Griffith Jones, but with rather more clatter in his thunder.

In 1736, on returning home, Harris opened a school, Griffith Jones supplying him with books from his charity. He also set up societies, in accordance with the recommendations in Josiah Wedgwood's little book on the subject; and these exercised a great influence on the religious life of the people. By far the most notable of Harris's converts was William Williams (1717-1791), Pant y Celyn, the great hymn-writer of Wales, who while listening to the revivalist preaching on a tombstone in the graveyard of Talgarth, heard the "voice of heaven," and was "apprehended as by a warrant from on high." He was ordained deacon in the Church of England, 1740, but Whitefield recommended him to leave his curacies and go into the highways and hedges. On Wednesday and Thursday, January 5th and 6th, 1743, the friends of aggressive Christianity in Wales met at Wadford, near Caerphilly, Glam., in order to organize their societies. George Whitefield was in the chair. Rowland, Williams and John Powell--afterwards of Llanmartin--(clergymen), Harris, John Humphreys and John Cennick (laymen) were present. Seven lay exhorters were also at the meetings; they were questioned as to their spiritual experience and allotted their several spheres; other matters pertaining to the new conditions created by the revival were arranged. This is known as the first Methodist Association--held eighteen months before Johm Wesley's first conference (June 25th, 1744). Monthly meetings covering smaller districts, were organized to consider local matters, the transactions of which were to be reported to the Quarterly Association, to be confirmed, modified, or rejected. Exhorters were divided into two classes--public, who were allowed to itinerate as preachers and superintend a number of societies; private, who were confined to the charge of one or two societies. The societies were distinctly understood to be part of the established church, as Wedgwood's were, and every attempt at estranging them therefrom was sharply reproved; but persecution made their position anomalous. They did not accept the discipline of the Church of England, so the plea of conformity was a feeble defence; nor had they taken out licenses, so as to claim the protection of the Toleration Act. Harris's ardent loyalty to the Church of England, after three refusals to ordain him, and his personal contempt for ill-treatment from persecutors, were the only things that prevented separation.

A controversy on a doctrinal point--"Did God die on Calvary?"--raged for some time, the principal disputants being Rowland and Harris; and in 1751 it ended in an open rupture, which threw the Connexion first into confusion and then into a state of coma. The societies split up into Harrisites and Rowlandites, and it was only with the revival of 1762 that the breach was fairly repaired. This revival is a landmark in the history of the Connexion. Williams of Pant y Celyn had just published a little volume of hymns, the singing of which inflamed the people. This led the bishop of St David's to suspend Rowland's license, and Rowland had to confine himself to a meeting-house at Llangeitho. Having been turned out of other churches, he had leased a plot of land in 1759, anticipating the final withdrawal of his license, in 1763, and a spacious building was erected to which the people crowded from all parts on Sacrament Sunday. Llangeitho became the Jerusalem of Wales; and Rowland's popularity never waned until his physical powers gave way. A notable event in the history of Welsh Methodism was the publication in 1770, of a 4to annotated Welsh Bible by the Rev. Peter Williams, a forceful preacher, and an indefatigable worker, who had joined the Methodists in 1746, after being driven from several curacies. It gave birth to a new interest in the Scriptures, being the first definite commentary in the language. A powerful revival broke out at Llangeitho in the spring of 1780, and spread to the south, but not to the north of Wales. The ignorance of the people of the north made it very difficult for Methodism to benefit from these manifestations, until the advent of the Rev. Thomas Charles (1755-1814), who, having spent five years in Somersetshire as curate of several parishes, returned to his native land to marry Sarah Jones of Bala. Failing to find employment in the established church, he joined the Methodists in 1784. His circulating charity schools and then his Sunday schools gradually made the North a new country. In 1791 a revival began at Bala; and this, strange to say, a few months after the Bala Association had been ruffled by the proceedings which led to the expulsion of Peter Williams from the Connexion, in order to prevent him from selling John Canne's Bible among the Methodists, because of some Sabellian marginal notes.

In 1790, the Bala Association passed "Rules regarding the proper mode of conducting the Quarterly Association," drawn up by Charles; in 1801, Charles and Thomas Jones of Mold, published (for the association) the "Rules and Objects of the Private Societies among the People called Methodists." About 1795, persecution led the Methodists to take the first step towards separation from the Church of England. Heavy fines made it impossible for preachers in poor circumstances to continue without claiming the protection of the Toleration Act, and the meeting-houses had to be registered as dissenting chapels. In a large number of cases this had only been delayed by so constructing the houses that they were used both as dwellings and as chapels at one and the same time. Until 1811 the Calvinistic Methodists had no ministers ordained by themselves; their enormous growth in numbers and the scarcity of ministers to administer the Sacrament--only three in North Wales, two of whom had joined only at the dawn of the century--made the question of ordination a matter of urgency. The South Wales clergy who regularly itinerated were dying out; the majority of those remaining itinerated but irregularly, and were most of them against the change. The lay element, with the help of Charles and a few other stalwarts, carried the matter through--ordaining nine at Bala in June, and thirteen at Llandilo in August. In 1823, the _Confession of Faith_ was published; it is based on the _Westminster Confession_ as "Calvinistically construed," and contains 44 articles. The Connexion's _Constitutional Deed_ was formally completed in 1826.

Thomas Charles had tried to arrange for taking over Trevecca College when the trustees of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion removed their seminary to Cheshunt in 1791; but the Bala revival broke out just at the time, and, when things grew quieter, other matters pressed for attention. A college had been mooted in 1816, but the intended tutor died suddenly, and the matter was for the time dropped. Candidates for the Connexional ministry were compelled to shift for themselves until 1837, when Lewis Edwards (1809-1887) and David Charles (1812-1878) opened a school for young men at Bala. North and South alike adopted it as their college, the associations contributing a hundred guineas each towards the education of their students. In 1842, the South Wales Association opened a college at Trevecca, leaving Bala to the North; the Rev. David Charles became principal of the former, and the Rev. Lewis Edwards of the latter. After the death of Dr Lewis Edwards, Dr. T.C. Edwards resigned the principalship of the University College at Aberystwyth to become head of Bala (1891), now a purely theological college, the students of which were sent to the university colleges for their classical training. In 1905 Mr David Davies of Llandinam--one of the leading laymen in the Connexion--offered a large building at Aberystwyth as a gift to the denomination for the purpose of uniting North and South in one theological college; but in the event of either association declining the proposal, the other was permitted to take possession, giving the association that should decline the option of joining at a later time. The Association of the South accepted, and that of the North declined, the offer; Trevecca College was turned into a preparatory school on the lines of a similar institution set up at Bala in 1891.

The missionary collections of the denomination were given to the London Missionary Society from 1798 to 1840, when a Connexional Society was formed; and no better instances of missionary enterprise are known than those of the Khasia and Jaintia Hills, and the Plains of Sylhet in N. India. There has also been a mission in Brittany since 1842.

The constitution of the denomination (called in Welsh, "Hen Gorph," i.e. the Old Body) is a mixture of Presbyterianism and Congregationalism; each church manages its own affairs and reports (1) to the district meeting, (2) to the monthly meeting, the nature of each report determining its destination. The monthly meetings are made up of all the officers of the churches comprised in each, and are split up into districts for the purpose of a more local co-operation of the churches. The monthly meetings appoint delegates to the quarterly Associations, of which all officers are members. The Associations of North and South are distinct institutions, deliberating and determining matters pertaining to them in their separate quarterly gatherings. For the purpose of a fuller co-operation in matters common to both, a general assembly (meeting once a year) was established in 1864. This is a purely deliberative conclave, worked by committees, and all its legislation has to be confirmed by the two Associations before it can have any force or be legal. The annual conference of the English churches of the denomination has no legislative standing, and is meant for social and spiritual intercourse and discussions.