Chapter IX: Struggles at Berne.--Synod of Lausanne

(1538.)

The state of affairs at Berne had changed since the synod of September 1537, at which Calvin, appearing on the scene as the messenger of peace, had brought in concord after strife. Megander, Erasmus Ritter, and Rhellican complained of the progress of _Bucerism_, and their adversaries complained of them as disturbers. Megander, it may be recollected, had agreed at the time of the synod to amend his catechism to a small extent. Now Bucer himself had in his zeal undertaken the task, and the council, without consulting Megander, had printed the revised and amended catechism. This was an act at once imprudent and wanting in respect. The lords of Berne were accustomed to play to some extent the part of autocrats. Megander was deeply wounded; and presenting himself before the council with Erasmus Ritter, he declared that he was fully determined not to become a Lutheran, and that consequently he could not allow the corrections of Bucer. Kunz and Sebastian Meyer on the other hand stoutly defended the catechism as revised by the Strasburg doctor.

[Sidenote: STRUGGLES AT BERNE.]

The State, when it intrudes into theological discussions, is wanting in the necessary tact, and is too often influenced by considerations foreign to religion. The council replied magisterially that the catechism was in conformity with Scripture; and it added despotically that Megander and Ritter must accept it as it is, or they would be immediately deprived of their offices. Ritter, who did not find in the catechism anything which at bottom imperilled the Christian faith, submitted. But Megander raised objections more or less well founded. He was wounded in his _amour-propre_ as author, and observing the eagerness of his adversaries to annoy him, he perceived that his position at Berne had become untenable. Therefore he held his ground and received his _congé_: a measure in which, however, they showed a certain consideration. It was the end of the year 1537. He then withdrew to Zurich, which received him with open arms.[576]

This proceeding of the Bernese government excited a great sensation. Zurich addressed to Berne a sharp remonstrance. The country pastors of the canton of Berne complained loudly of the government and of the ecclesiastical councillors, and inquired whether these gentlemen meant to abjure the Reformation. A meeting was held at Aarau, January 22, 1538, at which it was resolved to make representations to the council; and the dean of Aarau, Zehnder, named chief of the deputation, presented the complaint. February 1 was fixed for the hearing of the two opposing parties. But while Kunz and his colleagues were admitted into the council chamber and took their places by the side of the president, the dean and the country ministers waited at the door. No sooner were they admitted than Kunz addressed them with a haughty air, and rebuked them in a loud and stern voice. The country deans replied that they did not mean to be ruled by the city ministers as boys are by their schoolmaster. The discussion grew warm,[577] and even the members of the council took part in the quarrel.

Theological motives, as we may see, were not the only cause of the opposition raised by the country ministers. There were, besides, the rule which the city ministers assumed to exercise, and the power which the council arrogated to itself in the Church, and by virtue of which it had despotically deprived Megander. The country party did not want an aristocracy of the city clergy; the city party, lay and clerical, understood this. Little by little, therefore, they both lowered their tone, and instead of quarrelling they sought reconciliation. The city members assented to two alterations in the catechism revised by Bucer, and they declared that the country deputies had acted honorably. The latter on their part acknowledged that their colleagues of Berne had not become faithless to the Reformation. Apologies were made for the sharpness which had been imparted to the discussion. The city ministers paid visits to those from the country; they conducted them to the house of the provost, the first ecclesiastic of the canton, who gave them the warmest reception; they ate and drank together; and at last these good Swiss parted on the best terms with each other.[578] The cordial letter which Luther had written to the Swiss, December 1, 1537,[579] soothed their minds still more. The doctrine set forth by Calvin at the synod of September, to which Bucer and Capito had given their adhesion, was recognized at Berne as the true doctrine. Erasmus Ritter, above all, was heartily devoted to it. There was some hope of finding in it a basis of union; and by its means the petty divisions of Protestantism were to disappear.

[Sidenote: EXILE OF MEGANDER.]

Unfortunately, Luther has always had some disciples who were more Lutheran than himself. Kunz and Sebastian Meyer were of that number. Dissatisfied with Calvin’s confession, which to them was an irksome yoke, they were eager to shake it off. A new minister, just then called to Berne, joined them; but as he was endowed with a quiet, prudent, and tractable disposition, he constantly sought, although a decided follower of Luther, to moderate his two violent colleagues. This was Simon Sulzer. He was an illegitimate son of the Catholic provost of Interlaken, and had spent his earliest youth in the châlets and on the magnificent Alps of the Hasli. Haller had afterwards found him in a barber’s shop where he was earning a living in a humble way; and discovering his great abilities, he had recommended him to the council. In 1531 Sulzer became Master of Arts at Strasburg. The council of Berne had then intrusted to him the task of directing the establishment of schools in all the places of the canton which had none. He had afterwards applied himself to theology; had gone to Saxony for the purpose of holding intercourse with Luther, and on his return had been named professor of theology at Berne, as successor of Megander. Step by step he became the most influential representative in Switzerland of the system which aimed at union with the German reformer.[580]

Kunz, whose aim was the same, was not only a votary of tradition, in opposition to the Scriptural spirit of the Genevese minister, but he was also a man actuated by strong personal enmities. Calvin, although he did not wholly approve of Megander, had emphatically signified the pain which he had felt at his deprivation. ‘What a loss to the Church,’ he wrote to Bucer, January 12, 1538, ‘and how the enemies of the Gospel will exult when they see that we begin to banish our pastors; and that instead of considering how to overcome the powerful adversaries in whose presence we stand, we are inflicting mortal wounds on one another. This news of the deprivation of Megander has struck us as sharp a blow as if we had been told that great part of the Church of Berne had fallen down.[581] I admit that there was a mixture of what is human in his cause. But would it not be better to retain such a man and forgive him that trifling weakness, than to deprive him of his ministry, to the dishonor of God and of his Word, to the great injury of the Church, and with serious risk for the future? True, Sebastian Meyer and Kunz remain; but what can the former do except ruin the cause of the Gospel by his extravagances,[582] and by the violent outbreaks in which, when he is no longer master of himself, he indulges? As for Kunz, I can hardly trust myself to say what he is. Farel tells me that when he had lately to do with him, he never saw any beast more furious. His countenance, his gestures, his words, and his very complexion, said he, reminded him of the Furies.’[583] It is true that Calvin wrote thus to a friend, to Bucer. He said to him, ‘If I speak so freely to you, it is because I know to whom I am writing.’ But it was hardly possibly that Kunz should not hear from some one what Calvin thought of him. He became his mortal enemy, and he cherished the like hatred towards the other ministers of Geneva.[584] He let no opportunity escape him of opposing them. It was to no purpose that the Genevese sought to show him that they were not his enemies, and to appease him by their moderation. It was gratifying to him to appoint ministers in the Bernese territories about whom Calvin had expressed himself in the severest manner;[585] and when competent men had been examined and approved at Geneva, he would not receive them until after they had been re-examined by the Bernese classes.[586] Calvin however knew better than Kunz. ‘What do such beginnings forebode?’ exclaims Calvin; ‘while he fancies that he is inflicting lashes on us he is in fact preparing his own ruin. Assuredly, if that be the will of God, he will fall into the pit which he has digged, rather than continue to be the cause of so great troubles to the Church of Christ.’[587]

[Sidenote: RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE.]

In addition to the question of Lutheranism, there was also that of the relations between the Church and the State, which was a subject of difference between Berne and the Genevese reformers. At Berne the magistrate was considered, according to the views of Zwingli, the representative of the members of the flock; he was the bishop; the Church was a State Church. Calvin on the contrary, who had seen in France how the state treated the Reformation, wished for the autonomy of the Church. He did not indeed demand the complete separation of Church and State, but he desired that each of these two societies should have its own government. This was the end for which he was striving, and Kunz, when once aware of it, was still more enraged. To these two questions was added that of worship. On this matter, as on others, Kunz was the ape of Luther, as Megander was of Zwingli. Calvin was no imitator of either the one or the other, but adopted generally a middle course. With respect to worship he wished for great simplicity. Berne had retained certain Catholic usages. They baptized as formerly in a baptistery; at Geneva they put away the font and made use of a simple vessel. Berne, at the supper, used wafers and unleavened bread; Geneva used common bread. Berne had retained several festivals, even that of the Annunciation of the Virgin; Geneva celebrated none but the Lord’s day, the Sunday.[588] Farel having found these usages, at least in part, among the Vaudois, in the visit which he made to those valleys in 1532, had introduced them at Geneva, and Calvin, finding them there, had made no change.

Kunz detested these practices, and directed attention to them at Berne. The Lords of Berne saw these differences with regret, either because they intended to exercise a certain supremacy over the Church of Geneva, which they thought was indebted to them to a great extent for its reformation, and because they desired to see it in all respects like their own: or because they were afraid that these diversities would furnish the Catholics with weapons: or because the Churches of the canton of Vaud seemed inclined to adopt the order of Geneva and not that of Berne, which in the eyes of those gentlemen was almost an act of rebellion. The Bernese bailiffs forbade the Vaudois pastors of their department to receive Calvin and Farel at their colloquies, or to attend themselves those which were held at Geneva.[589] Farel, who had rendered signal services to Berne and to Vaud, was now forbidden to appear in the canton, into which, nevertheless, the fanatic ‘Spirituals’ had free admission. The reformer was indignant. ‘The Lord reward Kunz according to his deserts,’ he wrote to Fabri. ‘Yes, the Lord destroy those who go on destroying the Church.’[590] These expressions are, as we think, more in the spirit of the Old Testament than of the New.

[Sidenote: SYNOD AT LAUSANNE.]

The Bernese magistrates, in order to establish an outward unity, to which they attached great importance, as politicians generally do, determined to convoke a synod at Lausanne, and they wrote on the subject, March 10, to the magistrates of Geneva. The Council of the Two Hundred were quite inclined to adopt the usages of Berne as far as regarded ceremonies. Calvin and Farel having expressed to the council a desire to attend the proposed assembly, it was decided to send them, but at the same time to associate with them the councillor Jean Philippe.

The synod met at Lausanne, March 31. The temper of the Bernese was more dictatorial than conciliatory. The lords of Berne had indeed requested that Calvin and Farel should go to Lausanne; but instead of expecting of the assembly a work of conciliation, they had positively stipulated, in a letter to the council of Geneva, that the Genevese preachers must pledge themselves beforehand to adopt the order of worship established at Berne; and that on this condition only would they be allowed to take part in the deliberations of the synod. If their adhesion were not given before the meeting, they should be heard afterwards and should be separately treated with. The Genevese reformers, therefore, were invited neither to a free assembly nor a free discussion. No other right was conceded to them but that of submission. The Bernese added that the motive of this strange proceeding was to avoid giving their neighbors an opportunity of slandering the reformed religion, and to promote the union of the Churches. But the latter object, and through it the former, too, would probably have been more promptly attained by treating the ministers of Geneva in a brotherly and not in a despotic spirit. ‘The Bernese,’ according to Rozet, ‘inquired in a friendly way of Farel and Calvin on their arrival, whether they accepted their ceremonial.’ The reformers replied ‘that the subject was well deserving of discussion.’ Discussion was refused to them.[591]

The Bernese senate had named Kunz one of the presidents of the synod. Associated with him were the ministers of Erasmus Ritter, and two members of the great council, Huber and Amman. Kunz was one of those overbearing characters which inspire awe in other men, and whose influence is almost irresistible. His colleagues, moreover, were in agreement with him. The affair did not encounter any difficulty. The synod, which opened on March 31, unanimously accepted the usages of Berne,--the baptisteries, the unleavened bread at the supper, and the festivals, including that of the Annunciation of the Virgin.

Did Calvin and Farel attend the synod or not? It seems hardly probable that they would be willing by their presence to give a kind of sanction to an assembly from which they were virtually excluded. The letter of Berne to Geneva seems, moreover, to indicate clearly that unless they humbly received the ecclesiastical decisions of the magistrates and councils of Berne, they would only have a hearing apart. A highly partial biographer[592] states that they were seen in the town and even that they ‘went outside of it for pleasure.’ There would have been no great harm in their taking walks on the surrounding hills and on the banks of the Aar, enjoying the beauties of Swiss scenery, while they waited till it should please the lords of Berne to permit them to speak. But they would have been open to blame for not attending the synod if the order of Berne had not absolutely prohibited them. History therefore has been guilty of an error in that, while she mentions their absence from the synod, she has not reported the fact which justifies it; that is to say, the strange requirement of Berne,--a grave omission, which we would fain think was unintentional.[593]

[Sidenote: ABSENCE OF CALVIN AND FAREL.]

The conference between Calvin and Farel and the delegates of Berne took place. The ministers of Geneva, while they objected to the use of baptisteries and unleavened bread, had no intention of causing division on account of such things. They adhered more firmly to their views respecting festivals. ‘On what ground,’ said Calvin, ‘will you honor the day of the circumcision more than that of the death of the Redeemer?’ In fact, Good Friday was not celebrated at Berne. Kunz was silent.[594] Calvin and Farel wished that questions of this kind should be settled, not by delegates of the government but by the Church in its assemblies. They demanded therefore that the decision should be referred to a synod of the whole Reformed Church of Switzerland, which was to be held without delay at Zurich. All appearance of compulsion would thus be avoided; liberty and order would be equally respected, and the Church would be spared much grievous dissension. ‘There was an excellent remedy,’ Calvin wrote afterwards to the Zurichers, ‘by means of which danger might have been obviated; it was that we should be invited to your synod. But this we could not obtain.’[595]

When the lords of Berne found that their delegates had failed in their conference with the Genevese ministers, they resolved to write, on the same day, April 15, two letters: one to Calvin and Farel, the other to the council of Geneva, having no doubt that this clever contrivance would succeed. Their two missives were very nearly alike. They urged the ministers to accept the decision of the synod, without waiting for the assembly at Zurich, in order that the two Churches, united in the fundamentals of the faith, might likewise be in conformity in matters of ceremonial. And to the council they addressed entreaties to accept the same decision, ‘in the hope that Masters Farel and Calvin, although they had raised some difficulties, would advise for the best.’[596]