GIFTED with such powers of mind, and stored with such treasures of knowledge, who can question the sincerity of Calvin’s adherence to the principles of the Reformation? He has been charged, however, with ambitious motives, and with aspiring to a new popedom. Shameless calumny! With the pathway to honor, emolument and fame opened to him, did he not choose, like Moses, “rather to suffer with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season”? Did he not resign the benefices which he held, and which by a covert conduct, he might still have retained, and throw himself poor and unpatronized among the houseless wanderers who were everywhere spoken against as not worthy to live?

Did he not design to spend his time in retirement, as deeming himself unfit to take part in the noble strife? Was he not led to visit Geneva by the invisible hand of God, who had obstructed his route through Dauphiny and Savoy to Basle or Strasburgh, where he meant to retire? Was it not after many refusals, and the extremest urgency, he consented to remain in that city? And when appointed Professor of Divinity by the consistory and magistrates, did he not earnestly decline the office of pastor, which they also insisted upon his undertaking? When banished from that place did he not again seek retirement, and with manifest reluctance resume the duties of professor and of pastor, which Bucer, Capito, Hedio, and the Senate of Strasburgh conferred upon him? And when the whole city of Geneva entreated his return among them, did he not say, that “the further he advanced the more sensible he was how arduous a charge is that of governing a church, and that there was no place under heaven he more dreaded than Geneva”? How did he praise and exalt Melancthon and Luther! How did he bear with their opposition to his views, and their silence, when he wrote to them in friendship! Did he not, when he had succeeded in founding the College at Geneva, prefer Beza to the presidency, and himself become a professor under him? Did he not as late as 1553, in a letter to the minister of Zurich, call Farel “the father of the liberties of Geneva and the father of that church”? Ambitious! “a most extraordinary charge, says Beza, to be brought against a man who chose his kind of life, and in this state, in this church, which I might truly call the very seat of poverty.” No! the love of truth and of the cause of Christ, was the master passion of his soul. He realized what millions only profess, and judging with the apostle, that if Christ died for all, then were all dead, and that He thus died that they, who are made alive by his Spirit, should not henceforth live unto themselves, he consecrated his body, soul and spirit unto God. “Since,” says he, “I remember that I am not my own, nor at my own disposal, I give myself up, tied and bound, as a sacrifice to God.” When, therefore, he was driven from Geneva by a blinded faction, amid the lamentations of his whole flock, he could say, “Had I been in the service of men, this would have been a poor reward; but it is well — I have served HIM, who never fails to repay his servants whatever he has promised.” When the people of Strasburgh consented for a season to lend his service to the people of Geneva, they insisted on his retaining the privileges of a citizen and the stipend they had assigned him while resident among them. Was it ambition that led Calvin resolutely to decline the generous offer? Was it ambition which led him to settle at Geneva, where his stipend, which was one hundred crowns a year, barely supported his existence, and which nevertheless he pertinaciously refused to have increased? Did he not for years abstain from all animal food at dinner, rarely eating anything after breakfast till his stated hour for supper — and was not the whole amount of his remaining property, including his library, which sold high, less than three hundred crowns? Let the infidel Bayle, who was struck with astonishment by these facts, put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. f14 The charge of ambition is founded upon the, innate and surpassing greatness of Calvin. An exile from his country, without money, without friends, he raised himself, by merit alone, to a dominion over the minds of men. his throne was in the hearts of those who knew him; his scepter, truth; his laws, the silent influence of principle. Consider the difficulties which he encountered at Geneva. When he arrived at that place, in 1536, the city had neither religious nor political organization. Calvin undertook the task of giving it both. But in order to do so, he had first to cleanse the Augean stable, for to this the demoralized condition of Geneva might be well compared. The long reign of ignorance and superstition, the extreme corruption of the Romish clergy, the relaxation of manners consequent upon intestine feuds and open war, the licentiousness, anarchy and insubordination resulting from the first excesses of unrestrained freedom, the disorders occasioned by party spirit and factious demagogues, and the secret attachment of many to the discarded system of popery — these were causes sufficient to lead to the unparalleled dissoluteness of a city, where great numbers of houses of ill fame were recognized and licensed by the magistrates, with a regular female superior, who bore the name of Reine du Bordel. Calvin proved himself to be not only a theologian of the highest order, but also a politician of astonishing sagacity. Morals became pure. The laws of the state were revised and thoroughly changed. The ecclesiastical tribunals were made independent of the civil, and a system of the strictest discipline established. The sect of the Libertines was overthrown. The most powerful factions were dispersed. The enemies of truth and purity, though often triumphant, and always violent, were made to lick the dust, so that the wickedness of the wicked came to an end, and righteousness prevailed. The effects of Calvin’s influence, says a recent and prejudiced historian, “after the lapse of ages, are still visible in the industry and intellectual tone of Geneva.” f16 From having been a small and unimportant town, Geneva became the focus of light, the center of attraction, and the source of incalculable influence upon the destinies of Europe and the world. Calvin‘s seminary supplied teachers and ministers to most of the Reformed states of Europe. Geneva was honored with the title of the mother of Protestantism. Lodgings could with difficulty be found for the multitude of students that came to sit at the feet of the man whom Melancthon called “the divine.” It was to this “metropolis of Presbyterianism” all the proscribed exiles who were driven from other countries by the intolerance of Popery, “came to get intoxicated with presbytery and republicanism,” to carry back with them those seeds which have sprung up in the republic of Holland, the commonwealth of England, the glorious revolution of 1688, and our own American confederation.

Would you see the amazing power and influence of Calvin, read the history of his triumph over Bolsec, one of those hydras of faction that successively shot up their revegetating heads in Geneva. Behold Troillet, another of his enemies, when about to die, sending for Calvin, that he might confess his faults, declaring that he could not die in peace without obtaining his forgiveness. Behold him at Berne, debating against Castalio and others with such power that his opponents were henceforth excluded from that Canton. Thus, like another Hercules, armed with the simple club of God’s holy word, did he destroy the numerous monsters who threatened to overthrow the truth as it is in Jesus.

How wonderful was the influence, under God, of this single man! The Reformed Churches in France adopted his confession of faith, and were modelled after the ecclesiastical order of Geneva. To him England is indebted for her articles, for a purified liturgy, and for all her psalmody. f18 To him Scotland owes her Knox, her Buchanan, and her Melville, her ecclesiastical system, and all that has made her proudly eminent among the nations of the earth. To him Northern Ireland is indebted for the industry, manufactures, education, religion, and noble spirit of independence and freedom which she received from her first settlers, the followers of Calvin. To his letters, dedications, and exhortations, every nation of any eminence in his day, was accustomed to pay profound respect. These writings had a salutary influence even upon the Romish church. Her shame was excited, abuses were abandoned, discipline enforced, and the necessity of a reformation confessed. Nor was this influence merely ecclesiastical or political. The increase of his own church was, we are told, wonderful, and he could say, even during his life, “I have numberless spiritual children throughout the world.” His contemporaneous reputation was even greater than his posthumous fame, because all parties united in rendering him honor. Many Romanists, says Bayle, “would do him justice if they durst.” Scaliger said, he was “the greatest wit the world had seen since the apostles,” while the Romish bishop of Valence called him “the greatest divine in the world.” The Romanits too have been forced to acknowledge the falsity of their infamous calumnies published against his morals. Such was the terror he had inspired in this great apostasy, that when a false report of his death was circulated, they decreed a public procession, and returned thanks to God in their churches for his death. f22 Every pious, eminent, and learned Reformer was his friend. It was the power of his reputation, proclaiming abroad their own condemnation, that led the General Assembly of Geneva to adopt a decree for his return — to acknowledge the great injury they had done him, and implore forgiveness of Almighty God — to send an honorable deputation to him, to persuade him to accept their invitation — to go forth in throngs to welcome his return — and to allow him a secretary at the public expense. In short, it would be no difficult matter, as has been said, to prove, that there is not a parallel instance upon record, of any single individual being equally and so unequivocally venerated, for the union of wisdom and piety, both in England, and by a large body of the foreign churches, as John Calvin.

The full extent to which the living influence of Calvin extended, is only now being fully demonstrated. “A few days before he expired, in 1564, Calvin was in his library with Theodore de Beza, and, showing him the immense correspondence he had kept up, for above a quarter of a century, with the most evangelical Christians and the highest personages of Europe, proposed to him to publish it for the Church’s instruction. This wish of the dying Reformer was but tardily and partially accomplished in the sixteenth century; but a literary man, and a Christian of our days, Mr. Jules Bonnet Docteur es Lettres, has undertaken, after the lapse of three hundred years, to fulfill Calvin’s wish; and five years spent in travelling in Switzerland, in France, and in Germany, with careful studies and researches in the libraries of these different countries, have enabled him to form a collection which will throw a fresh light on the history of the Reformation. This correspondence, which terminates only on Calvin’s death-bed, embraces every period of his life, and contains at the same time the familiar effusions of friendship, grave theological statements, and elevated views of the politics of Protestantism. We see in it the Reformer reproving, with all respect and dignity, the Queen of Navarre, Marguerite de Valois, sister of Francis I, exhorting the young King of England, Edward VI, as a Christian Mentor speaking to his Telemachus, conversing with Melancthon, Bullinger, Knox, Conde, Coligny, the Duchess of Ferrara, daughter of Louis XII, Jeanne d’Albret, mother of Henry IV; we see him withstanding libertines, strengthening martyrs, upholding all the churches. “This important publication appears to be a remarkable event in the history of the Church and of theology. As documents, these letters will compel the odious calumnies which have been circulated, to yield to the impartial witness of truth. We shall learn from Calvin’s own mouth what his thoughts, wishes, and pursuits were, and we shall find in his most familiar writings the secret of the revolution of which he was, in this world, the instrument.

Certainly Luther is the first Reformer; but if Luther laid the foundation, Calvin built thereon. If, on the one hand, we consider the Lutheran Reformation imperfect in some respects, and, on the other, the Calvinistic imperfect also, I agree to it; but powerful, more complete, better organized, and full of action. If we compare the Lutheran nations of Germany, rich in intelligence, in missionary zeal, but who are still far from understanding and practising some questions, in particular that of religious liberty, with the nations which have passed chiefly under Calvin’s influence — Holland, Scotland, England, the United States — these free people, some of whom stretch their scepters over all seas, and to the very extremities of the world, it is impossible not to perceive that Luther and Calvin are the greatest men of modern times; the most eminent Christians since St. Paul; at least, if we consider their influence on the human mind. How, then, could we fail to study the familiar letters of Calvin, that most powerful instrument in the hands of the Lord?”

This correspondence has already attracted the attention of eminent men. In particular the Paris Journal des Debats has devoted an interesting article to the subject, from which we quote the following lines: “Let us bring before our minds the state of excitement in which the ardent disciple of the Reformation (Calvin) must have lived, when from Paris, from Lyons, from Chambery, he received tidings of the tortures endured by his co-religionists. History has not sufficiently dwelt upon the atrocity of these persecutions, nor on the resignation, the courage, the serenity of the sufferers. There are there pages worthy of the early ages of the Church; and I do not doubt that a simple history, composed from the documents and the correspondence of the times of these sublime struggles, would equal in beauty the ancient martyrology. Calvin’s voice in these moments of trial attains a fullness and elevation truly marvellous.