“CALVIN,” said Bishop Andrews, “was an illustrious person, and never to be mentioned without a preface of the highest honor.” “Of what account,” says his great opponent, Hooker, “the Master of Sentences was in the Church of Rome, the same and more amongst the preachers of reformed churches Calvin had purchased: so that the perfectest divines were judged they, which were skilfulest in Calvin’s writings; his books almost the very canon to judge both doctrine and discipline by.” And again, concerning his Commentaries and his Institutes, which together make up eight parts out of nine of his works, Hooker adds, “we should be injurious unto virtue itself, if we did derogate from them whom their industry hath made great.

Two things of principal moment there are, which have deservedly procured him honor throughout the world: the one his exceeding pains in composing the Institutes of Christian Religion; the other his no less industrious travails for exposition of Holy Scripture, according unto the same Institutions. In which two things whosoever they were that after him their labor, he gained the advantage of prejudice against them, if they gainsayed, and of glory above them, if they consented.”

Such was the estimation in which Calvin was held by his cotemporaries, both continental and Anglican. To Cranmer and his associates in the English Reformation, he was all in all. They sought his counsel, leaned upon his wisdom, were guided by his directions, and sustained by his consolations. His name is found enrolled with honor in the Book of Convocation as late as the seventeenth century, and his spirit still breathes through those Articles which have preserved the Protestantism and the orthodoxy of the English church. f2 Among the continental Reformers, Calvin was equally pre-eminent. Giants as they were in intellect, in acquirement, and in prowess, he towered above them all, like Saul among the people of Israel. Where all were great, he was greatest. Though naturally less bold than Luther, he was enabled to manifest a superhuman bravery, and was, even in this respect, not a whir behind that noble champion of the truth. “He was,” says Bayle, “frighted at nothing.” Exquisitely sensitive and timid by constitution, he was, from his earliest years, obliged to bend to the inflexible rule of duty, and thus became habituated to self-sacrifice. When God called him by his grace to the knowledge of the truth and power of the gospel, he took up his cross to follow Jesus, suffering the loss of all things, and not counting his life dear unto him. The storm of persecution was then at its height. Its fiery bolts were spreading consternation and alarm throughout all France. The Parliament was on the watch. The spies of the Sorbonne and of the monks were found creeping into churches and colleges, and even into the recesses of private dwellings. The gens d’armes patrolled the highways to hunt down every favorer of the reform. Then it was that Calvin enlisted as a good soldier under the Captain of Salvation; buckled on the armor of God, and threw himself boldly on the Lord’s side. His whole subsequent course proves that, through the grace of God, he was valorous even to daring. At the risk of his life, he ventured back to Paris, in 1532, in the very midst of abounding persecution, that he might defend the truth. While the whole city of Geneva was in a ferment of rage, he hesitated not to suspend the celebration of the communion, and when publicly debarred the use of the pulpit, to appear in it as usual. When the plague had broken out, and was carrying death and destruction around, Calvin was found ready to offer himself as a chaplain to its infected victims. During his contests with the libertine faction, he frequently attended the summons of the senate when his life was exposed to imminent danger from the swords of the contending parties, many of whom were anxious for an opportunity, according to their summary mode of punishment, to throw him into the Rhone. In the year 1553, through the influence of Bertelier, the grand council of two hundred, decreed that all cases of excommunication should be vested in the senate, from which body Bertelier obtained two letters of absolution. The resolution of Calvin, however, was taken, and he was not to be daunted.

He first procured the senate to be called together, stated his views and his determination, and endeavored, but in vain, to induce them to revoke their indulgence granted to Bertelier, he received for answer, that “the senate changed nothing in their former decision.” After preaching, however, on the Sunday morning previously to the administration of the Lord’s supper, in a solemn tone, and with uplifted hand, he uttered severe denunciations against profaners of the holy mysteries: “and for my own part,” said he, “after the example of Chrysostom, I avow that I will suffer myself to be slain at the table, rather than allow this hand to deliver the sacred symbols of the Lord’s body and blood to adjudged despisers of God.” This was uttered with such authority, and produced such an effect, that Perrin himself immediately whispered to Bertelier that he must not present himself as a communicant. He accordingly withdrew; and the sacred ordinance, says Beza, “was celebrated with a profound silence, and under a solemn awe in all present, as if the Deity himself had been visible among them.”

But there was another scene which occurred amid those factious commotions by which Calvin was continually distressed, which deserves to be immortalized. Perrin and others having been censured by the consistory, and failing to obtain redress from the senate, appealed to the council of two hundred. Disorder, violence and sedition reigned throughout the city. On the day preceding the assembly, Calvin told his brethren that he apprehended tumult, and that it was his intention to be present.

Accordingly, he and his colleagues proceeded to the council-house, where they arrived without being noticed. Before long, they heard loud and confused clamors, which were instantly increasing. The crowd heaved to and fro with all the violence of a stormy ocean chafed into ungovernable fury, and ready to overwhelm its victims in destruction. Calvin, however, like Caesar, cast himself, alone and unprotected, into the midst of the seditious multitude. They stood aghast at his fearless presence. His friends rallied around him. Lifting his voice, he told them he came to oppose his body to their swords, and if blood was to flow, to offer his as the first sacrifice. Rushing between the parties, who were on the point of drawing their swords in mutual slaughter, he obtained a hearing; addressed them in a long and earnest oration; and so completely subdued their evil purposes, that peace, order, and tranquillity were immediately restored.

Such, by the grace of God, was the weak, timorous and shrinking Calvin.

Firm as the mountains of his country, he stood unmoved amid the storms that beat around him. He lifted his soul undaunted, above those mists, which, to all others, shrouded the future in terrific gloom, and exercising a faith strong in the promises of God, could behold afar off the triumphs of the cause. As the twelve apostles, when left to themselves, fled like frightened sheep at the approach of danger, when endued with power from on high were made bold as lions, so did the perfect love of Christ’s truth and cause cast out all fear from the bosom of Calvin. Even in point of courage, therefore, he was not inferior to the very chiefest of Reformers.

But in learning, in sound and correct judgment, in prudence and moderation; in sagacity and penetration; in system and order; in cultivation and refinement of manners; in the depth and power of his intellect; Calvin shone forth amid the splendid galaxy of illustrious Reformers, a star of the first magnitude and brightest luster.