THE HISTORY OF
PROTESTANTISM
VOLUME 2: BOOKS 14-15
by
James Aitken Wylie
1
CONTENTS
Book Fourteen - Rise and Establishment of Protestantism at Geneva
3
1. Geneva: the City and its History
2. Genevese Martyrs of Liberty
3. The Reform in Lausanne Established in Morat and Neuchatel
4. Tumults - Successes - Toleration
5. Fabel Enters Geneva
6. Geneva on the Brink of Civil War
7. Heroism of Geneva
8. Rome Falls and Geneva Rises
9. Establishment of Protestantism in Geneva
10. Calvin Enters Geneva - Its Civil and Ecclesiastical Constitution
11. Sumptuary Laws - Calvin and Farel Banished
12. Calvin at Strasburg - Rome Draws Near to Geneva
13. Abortive Conferences at Hagenau and Ratisbon
14. Calvin Returns to Geneva
15. The Ecclesiastical Ordinances
16. The New Geneva
17. Calvin’s Battles With the Libertines
18. Calvin’s Labours for Union
19. Servetus Comes to Geneva and is Arrested
20. Calvin’s Victory Over the Libertines
21. Apprehension and Trial of Servetus
22. Condemnation and Death of Servetus
23. Calvin’s Correspondence With Martyrs, Reformers and Monarchs
24. Calvin’s Manifold Labours
25. Final Victory and Glory of Geneva
26. Geneva and its Influence in Europe
27. The Academy of Geneva
28. The Social and Family Life of Geneva
29. Calvin’s Last Illness and Death
30. Calvin’s Work
Footnotes - Book Fourteen
4
10
14
20
24
29
34
38
44
51
56
61
67
71
75
79
82
87
93
97
102
107
113
119
123
128
134
137
141
145
153
Book Fifteen - The Jesuits
174
1. Ignatius Loyola
2. Loyola’s First Disciples
3. Organization and Training of the Jesuits
4. Moral Code of the Jesuits - Probabilism, Etc.
5. The Jesuit Teaching on Regicide, Murder, Lying, Theft, Etc.
6. The “Secret Instructions” of the Jesuits
7. Jesuit Management of Rich Widows and the Heirs of Great Families
8. Diffusion of the Jesuits Throughout Christendom
9. Commercial Enterprises and Banishments
10. Restoration of the Inquisition
11. The Tortures of the Inquisition
Footnotes - Book Fifteen
175
180
185
192
197
203
207
212
217
222
226
232
2
BOOK FOURTEEN
RISE AND ESTABLISHMENT OF
PROTESTANTISM AT GENEVA
3
CHAPTER 1
GENEVA: THE CITY AND ITS HISTORY
Protestantism has now received its completed logical and doctrinal development, and
a new and more central position must be found for it. Before returning to the open
stage of the great Empires of France and Germany, and resuming our narrative of the
renovating powers which the Reformation had called forth, with the great social and
political revolutions which came in its train, we must devote our attention to a city
that is about to become the second metropolis of Protestantism.
In leaving the wide arena of empire where Protestantism is jostled by dukes, prelates,
and emperors, and moves amid a blaze of State pageantries, and in shutting ourselves
up in a little town whose name history, as yet, had hardly deigned to mention, and
whose diminutive size is all but annihilated by the mighty mountainous masses amid
which it is placed, we make a great transition. But if the stage is narrow, and if
Protestantism is stripped of all that drapery and pomp which make it so imposing on
the wider arena, we shall here have a closer view of the principle itself, and be the
better able to mark its sublimity and power, in the mighty impulses which from this
centre it is to send abroad, in order to plant piety and nourish liberty in other
countries.
In the valley which the Jura on the one side, and the white Alps on the other, enclose
within their gigantic arms, lies the mirror-like Leman. At the point where the Rhone
gushes from the lake a bulging rock bristles up, and, framing in the form of a crescent
a little space along the shore of the Leman, forms a pedestal for the city of Geneva.
The little town looks down upon the placid waters of the lake spread out at its feet,
and beholds its own image mirrored clearly, but not grandly, for architectural
magnificence is not one of the characteristic features of the city, especially in the
times of which we write. A few miles away, on the other side, another rock shoots up,
dark, precipitous, and attaining the dignity of a mountain - lofty it would seem in any
other country, but here it has to compete with the gigantic piles of the Alps - and,
bending crest-like, leans over Geneva, which it appears to guard. A few acres suffice
to give standing-room to the city. Its population in the days of Calvin numbered only
some 12,000, and even now does not much exceed 40,000. Its cantonal territory is the
smallest in all Switzerland, that of Zug excepted. Its diminutive size provoked the
sneer of the philosopher of Ferney, who could survey it all standing at his door.
“When I dress my peruke,” said Voltaire, “I powder the whole republic.” The
Emperor Paul sarcastically called the struggles of its citizens “a tempest in a teapot.”
In days prior to the utterance of these sarcasms and taunts - that is, in the latter part of
the sixteenth century - this little town excited other emotions than those of contempt,
and was the butt of other assaults than those of sarcasm. It brought pallor into the face
of monarchs. It plucked the sceptre from the grasp of mighty empires, and showed the
world that it knew how to extend and perpetuate its sway by making itself the
metropolis of that moral and spiritual movement which, whatever might be the fate of
the city itself, even should its site become the bare rock it once was, would continue
to spread abroad to all countries, and travel down to all the ages of the future.
Turning from its site to its history, Geneva dates from before the Christian era, and is
scarcely, if at all, less ancient than that other city, that takes the proud name of
“Eternal,” and with which it has been Geneva’s lot, in these last ages, to do battle.
4
Buried amid the dense shadows of paganism, and afterwards amid the not less dense
shadows of Popery, Geneva remained for ages unknown, and gave no augury to the
world of the important part it was destined to play, at a most eventful epoch, in the
history of nations.
It comes first into view in connection with the great Julius, who stumbled upon it as
he was pursuing his career of northern conquest, and wrote its name in his
Commentaries, where it figures as “the last fortress of the Allobroges.”[1] But the
conqueror passed, and with him passed the light which had touched for a moment this
sub-Alpine stronghold. It fell back again into the darkness. Under Honourius, in the
fourth century, it became a city. It rose into some eminence, and even was possessed
of a little liberty, in the days of Charlemagne. But a better day-spring awaited Geneva.
The rising sun of the Reformation struck full upon it, and this small town became one
of the lights of the world.
But we must glance back, and see what a long preparation the little city had to
undergo for its great destiny. The dissolution of the Empire of Charlemagne set
Geneva free to consider after what fashion it should govern itself. At this crisis its
bishop stepped forward and claimed, in addition to its spiritual oversight, the right to
exercise its temporal government. The citizens conceded the claim only within certain
limits. Still preserving their liberties, they took the bishop into partnership with them
in the civic jurisdiction. The election of the bishop was in the hands of the people,
and, before permitting him to mount the episcopal chair, they made him take an oath
to preserve their franchises.[2] In the middle of the thirteenth century the
independence of Geneva began to be menaced by the Counts of Savoy. That
ambitious house, which was labouring to exalt itself by absorbing its neighbours’
territory into its own, had cast covetous eyes upon Geneva. It would round off their
dominions; besides, they were sharp-sighted enough to see that there were certain
principles at work in this little Alpine town which made them uneasy. But neither
intrigues nor arms - and the Princes of Savoy employed both - could prevail to this
end. The citizens of Geneva knew how it fared with them under the staff of their
bishop, but they did not know how it might go with them under the sword of the
warrior, and so they stubbornly declined the protection of their powerful neighbour.
In the fifteenth century, the Counts of Savoy, now become dukes, still persevering in
their attempts to bring the brave little city under their yoke, besought the aid of a
power which history attests has done more than all the dukes and warriors of
Christendom to extinguish liberty. Duke Amadeus VIII., who had added Piedmont to
his hereditary dominions, as if to exemplify the adage that “ambition grows by what it
feeds on,” petitioned Pope Martin V. to vest in him the secular lordship of Geneva.
The citizens scented what was in the wind, and knowing that “Rome ought not to lay
its paw upon kingdoms,” resolved to brave the Pope himself if need were. Laying
their hands upon the Gospels, they exclaimed, “No alienation of the city or of its
territory - this we swear.” Amadeus withdrew before the firm attitude of the
Genevese.
Not so the Pope; he continued to prosecute the intrigue, deeming the little town but a
nest of eaglets among crags, which it were wise betimes to pull down. But, more
crafty than the duke, he tried another tack. Depriving the citizens of the right of
electing their bishop, Martin V. took the nomination into his own hands, and thus
5
opened the way for quietly transferring the municipal rule of Geneva to the House of
Savoy. All he had now to do was to appoint a Prince of Savoy as its bishop. By-andby this was done; and the struggle with the Savoy power was no longer outside the
walls only, it was mainly within. The era that now opened to Geneva was a stormy
and bloody one. Intrigues and rumours of intrigues kept the citizens in perpetual
disquiet. The city saw itself stripped of its privileges and immunities one by one. Its
annual fair was transferred to Lyons, and the crowd of merchants and traders which
had flocked to it from beyond the Alps, from the towns of France, and from across the
Rhine, ceased to be seen. Tales of priestly scandals - for the union of the two offices
in their prince-bishop only helped to develop the worst qualities of both - passed from
mouth to mouth and polluted the very air. If Geneva was growing weaker, Savoy was
growing stronger. The absorption of one petty principality after another was daily
enlarging the dominions of the duke, which, sweeping past and around Geneva,
enclosed it as in a net, with a hostile land bristling with castles and swarming with
foes. It was said that there were more Savoyards than Genevese who heard the bells of
St. Pierre. Such was the position in which the opening of the sixteenth century found
Geneva. This small but ancient municipality was seemingly on the point of being
absorbed in the dominions of the House of Savoy. Its history appeared to be closed.
The vulture of the Alps, which had hovered above it for centuries, had but to swoop
down upon it and transfix it with his talons.
At that moment a new life suddenly sprang up in the devoted city. To preserve the
remnant of their franchises was not enough; the citizens resolved to recover what
liberties had been lost. In order to this many battles had to be fought, and much blood
spilt. Leo X., about the same time that he dispatched Tetzel to Germany to sell
indulgences, sent a scion of the House of Savoy to Geneva (1513) as bishop. By the
first the Pope drew forth Luther from his convent, by the second he paved the way for
Calvin. The newly-appointed bishop, known in history as the” Bastard of Savoy,”
brought to the episcopal throne of Geneva a body foul with disease, the fruit of his
debaucheries, and a soul yet more foul with deceitful and bloody passions; but a fit
tool for the purpose in hand. The matter had been nicely arranged between the Pope,
the duke, and the Bastard.[3] “John of Savoy swore to hand over the temporal
jurisdiction of the city to the duke, and the Pope swore he would force the city to
submit to the duke, under pain of incurring the thunders of the Vatican.”[4]
From that time there was ceaseless and bitter war between the citizens of Geneva on
one side, and the duke and the bishop on the other. It is not our business to record the
various fortune of that strife. Now it was the bishop who was besieged in his palace,
and now it was the citizens who were butchered upon their own streets by the
bishop’s soldiers. Today it was the Bastard who was compelled to seek safety in
flight, and tomorrow it was some leader of the patriots who was apprehended,
tortured, beheaded, and his ghastly remains hung up to the public gaze as a warning to
others. But if blood was shed, it was blood that leads to victory. The patriots, who
numbered only nine at first, multiplied from year to year, though from year to year the
struggle grew only the bloodier. The Gospel had not yet entered the gates of Geneva.
The struggle so far was for liberty only, a name then denoting that which was man’s
noblest birthright after the Gospel, and which found as its champions men of pure and
lofty soul. Wittemberg and Geneva had not yet become fused; the two liberties had
not yet united their arms.
6
Among the names that illustrate this struggle, so important from what was to come
after, are the well-known ones of Bonivard, Berthelier, and Levrier - a distinguished
trio, to whom modern liberty owes much, though the stage on which they figured was
a narrow one.
Bonivard was a son of the Renaissance. A scholar and a man of wit, he drew his
inspiration for liberty from a classic font. From his Priory of St. Victor this
accomplished and liberal-minded man assailed Rome with the shafts of satire. If his
erudition was less profound and his taste less exquisite than that of Erasmus, his
courage was greater. The scholar of Rotterdam flagellated the man in serge, but
spared the man in purple: the Prior of St. Victor dealt equal justice to monk and Pope.
He lashed the ignorance and low vices of the former, but castigated yet more severely
the pride, luxury, and ambition of the latter. He mistrusted the plan Rome had hit on
of regenerating men in tribes and clans, and preferred to have it done individually. He
thought too that it would be well if his “Holiness” possessed a little holiness, though
that was a marvel he did not expect soon to see. “I have lived,” he said, “to see three
Popes. First, Alexander VI. [Borgia] a sharp fellow, a ne’er-do-weel … a man without
conscience, and without God. Next came Julius II., proud, choleric, studying his bottle
more than his breviary, mad about his Popedom, and having no thought but how he
could, subdue not only the earth, but heaven and hell. Last appeared Leo X., the
present Pope, learned in Greek and Latin, but especially a good musician, a great
glutton, a deep drinker; possessing beautiful pages, whom the Italians style ragazzi …
above all, don’t trust Leo X.’s word; he can dispense others, and surely can dispense
himself.”[5]
He brusquely allegorised the German Reformation thus: “Leo X. and his
predecessors,” said the prior, “have always taken the Germans for beasts; pecora
campi, they were called, and rightly too, for these simple Saxons allowed themselves
to be saddled and ridden like asses. The Popes threatened them with cudgelling
(excommunications), enticed them with thistles (indulgences), and so made them trot
to the mill to bring away the meal for them. But having one day loaded the ass too
heavily, Leo made him gib, so that the flour was spilt, and the white bread lost. That
ass is called Martin like all asses, and his surname is Luther, which signifies
enlightener.”[6]
The lettered and gentlemanly Prior of St. Victor had not a little of the cold, sneering,
sceptical spirit that belonged to the Renaissance. He “put on his gloves” when he
came in contact with the citizens of Geneva; they were somewhat too bluff and
outspoken for him; nevertheless he continued steadfastly on their side, and, with not a
few temptations to act a contrary part, proved himself a true friend of liberty. He was
seized with the idea that were he Bishop and Prince of Geneva, he would have it in his
power to liberate his native city. He even set off to Rome in the hope of realising a
project which every one who knew who Bonivard was, and what Rome was, must
have deemed chimerical. It was found at Rome that he had not the grace for a bishop,
and he returned without the mitre. It was a wonder to many that he was permitted to
return at all, and the prior must have been thankful for his escape.
Berthelier was cast in another mould. He was the tribune of the people; he talked,
laughed, and caroused with them; he sought especially to surround himself with the
youth of Geneva; for this end he studied their tastes, and entered into all their
amusements, but all the while he was on the watch for fitting occasions of firing them
7
with his own spirit of hatred of tyranny, and devotion to the public welfare. He was
sagacious, ready, indomitable, and careless of life. He knew what the struggle was
coming to as regarded himself, but he did not bemoan the hard fate awaiting him,
knowing that there was a mysterious and potent power in blood to advance the cause
for which it was shed.
The third of a group, individually so unlike, yet at one in the cause of their country’s
ancient freedom, was Levrier. He was calm, severe, logical; his ideal was justice. He
was a judge, and whatever was not according to law ought to be resisted and
overthrown. The bishop’s regime was one continuous perversion of right; it must be
brought to an end: so pleaded Levrier. From time immemorial the men of Geneva had
been free: what right had the Duke of Savoy and his creature, the bishop, to make
slaves of them? Neither the duke nor the bishop was sovereign of Geneva; its true
ruler was its charter of ancient franchises: so said the man of law. The duke feared the
great citizen. Levrier was quiet, but firm; he indulged in no clamour, but he cherished
no fear; he bowed before the majesty of law, and stood erect before the tyrant:
“Non vultus instantis tyranni,
Mente quatit solida.”
Such were the men who were now fighting the battle of liberty at the foot of the Alps
in the dawn of modern times. That battle has varied its form in the course of the
centuries. In after-days the contest in Continental Europe has been to separate the
spiritual from the temporal, relegate each to its own proper domain, and establish
between the two such a poise as shall form a safeguard to freedom; and especially to
pluck the sword of the State from the hands of the ecclesiastical power. But at
Geneva, in the times we write of, the conflict had for its immediate object to prevent a
separation between the two powers. Nevertheless, the battle is the same in both cases,
the same in Geneva 300 years ago as in Europe in 1875. The Genevans had no love
for the man who occupied their episcopal throne; it was no aim of theirs, in the last
resort, to preserve a class of amphibious rulers, neither prince nor bishop, but the two
mixed and confounded, to the immense detriment of both. The Prince-Bishop of
Geneva was, on a small scale, what the Prince-Bishop of Rome was on a great. But
the Genevans preferred having one tyrant to having two. This was the alternative
before them. They knew that should they, at this hour, strip the bishop of the temporal
government, the duke would seize upon it, and they preferred meanwhile keeping the
mitre and the sceptre united, in the hope that they would thus not only shut out the
duke, but eventually expel the prince-bishop.
Marvellous it truly was that so little a city should escape so many snares, and defy so
many armed assaults; for the duke again and again advanced with his army to take it nay, upon one occasion, was admitted within its walls. There were foes enough
around it, one would have thought, to have swept it from off its rock, trod buried it
beneath the waves of its lake. And so would it have happened to Geneva but for the
bravery of its sons, who were resolved that sooner than see it enslaved they would see
it razed to the ground.
Had it been a great empire, its posts, dignities, and titles might have stimulated and
sustained their patriotism; but what recompense in point of fame or riches could a
little obscure town like Geneva offer for the blood which its citizen-heroes were ready
every moment to pour out in defence of its freedom? A higher power than man had
8
kindled this fire in the hearts of its citizens. The combatants were fighting, although
they knew it not, for a higher liberty than Geneva had yet tasted. And that liberty was
on the road to it. The snowy peaks around it were even now beginning to kindle with
a new day. Voices were heard crying to the beleaguered and perplexed town, “How
beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that bring good tidings; that publish
peace!” It was the purpose of him who putteth down the mighty from their seats, and
exalteth the lowly, to lift this city to equality with the ancient capitals of Christendom
- nay, to place it above them all. For this end would he make empty the episcopal
throne in St. Pierre, that the Gospel might enter and seat itself upon it. Then would
Geneva raise its head in the presence of the ancient and historic cities of Europe Rome, Paris, Milan, Venice - with a halo round it brighter than had ever encircled
their brow. It would stand forth a temple of liberty, in the midst of Christendom, its
gates open day and night, to welcome within its walls, as within an impregnable
fortress, the persecuted of all lands.
9
CHAPTER 2
GENEVESE MARTYRS OF LIBERTY
Before the day of Geneva’s greatness should have arrived, many of its heroic
defenders would be resting in the grave, the road thither for nearly all of them being
by the scaffold. Let us recount the fate of the more prominent; and, first of all, of
Berthelier. One morning, as he was going to breathe the fresh air outside the walls in
his favourite meadow, bathed by the waters of the Rhone, he was arrested by the
duke’s soldiers.[1] He bore himself with calmness and dignity both at his arrest and
during the few days now left him of life. He wrote on the walls of his prison a verse of
Scripture, which permits us to hope that he had cast anchor in another world than that
which he was so soon to leave. His head fell by the hand of the executioner at the foot
of Caesar’s Tower, in the isle in the Leman, near the point where the Rhone issues
from the lake.[2] His fellow-citizens beheld him die, but could not save him. The
cruel deed but deepened their purpose of vengeance. The head of the patriot was
fastened up on the bridge of the Arve. Blackening in the sun it was a ghastly
memorial of Savoyard tyranny, and a thrilling appeal to the compatriots of Berthelier
never to submit to the despot who had no other rewards than this for the noblest of
Geneva’s sons.
The fate of Bonivard was less tragic, but has become better known to us, from the
notice bestowed upon him by a great poet. He was deprived of his priory; and while a
scaffold was set up for Berthelier at one extremity of the Leman, a dungeon was
found for Bonivard at the other. The modern tourist, as he passes along the lovely
shores of the lake, beneath the magnificent amphitheatre of mountains that overhang
Vevay, has his attention arrested by the massive and still entire walls of a castle,
surrounded on all sides by the deep waters of the Leman, save where a draw-bridge
joins it to the shore. This is the Castle of Chillon, the scene of Bonivard’s
imprisonment, and where the track worn by his feet in the rocky floor may still be
traced, while the ripple of the water, which rises to the level of the loop-hole in the
wall, may be heard when the wind stirs upon the lake.
At this stage of the drama, the wretched man who had filled the office of bishop, and
had been the duke’s co-conspirator in these attempts upon the liberty of Geneva, died
(1522) miserably at Pignerol, on the southern side of the Alps, on the very frontier of
the territory of the Waldenses. His dying scene was awful and horrible. Around his
bed stood only hirelings. Careless of the agonies he was enduring, their eyes roamed
round the room in quest of valuables, which they might carry off whenever his breath
should depart. The effigies of his victims seemed traced upon the wall of his chamber.
They presented to him a crucifix: he thought it was Berthelier, and shrieked out. They
brought him the last Sacrament: he fancied they were sprinkling him with blood; his
lips, whitened with foam, let fall execrations and blasphemies. Such is the picture
which a Romanist writer draws of his last hours. But before the dark scene closed
something like a ray of light broke in. He conjured his coadjutor and successor, Pierre
de la Baume, not to walk in his footsteps, but to defend the franchises of Geneva. He
saw in the sufferings he was enduring the punishment of his misdeeds; he implored
forgiveness, and hoped God would pardon him in purgatory.[3]
But Charles III, Duke of Savoy and Piedmont, still lived, and unwarned by the
miserable end of his accomplice, he continued to prosecute his guilty project.[4]
10
Another martyr of liberty was now to offer up his life. The man who most
embarrassed the duke still lived: he must be swept from his path. Charles did not
believe in patriotism, and thought to buy Levrier.[5]
The judge spurned the bribe. Well, the axe will do what gold can not. He was arrested
(Easter, 1524) at the gates of St. Pierre, as he was leaving after hearing morning mass.
“He wore a long camlet robe, probably his judicial gown, and a beautiful velvet
cassock.”[6] Mounted hastily upon a wretched nag, his hands tied behind his back,
and his feet fastened below the belly of his horse, the judge was carried, in the midst
of armed men, who jeered at and called him traitor, to the Castle of Bonne, where the
duke was then residing.
The Castle of Bonne, now a ruin, is some two leagues from Geneva. It stands in
midst of scenery such as Switzerland only can show. The panorama presents to
eye an assemblage of valleys, with their carpet-like covering, foaming torrents,
black mouths of gorges, pines massed upon the hill-tops, and beyond, afar off,
magnificence of snowy peaks.
the
the
the
the
The tragedy enacted in this spot we shall leave D’Aubigne to tell, who has here, with
his usual graphic power, set in the light of day a deed that was done literally in the
darkness. “Shortly,” says the historian, “after Bellegrade’s” (the man who pronounced
doom) “departure, the confessor entered, discharged his duty mechanically, uttered
the sentence ‘Ego to absolvo,’ and withdrew, showing no more sympathy for his
victim than the provost had done. Then appeared a man with a cord: it was the
executioner. It was then ten o’clock at night. The inhabitants of the little town and of
the adjacent country were sleeping soundly, and no one dreamt of the cruel deed that
was about to cut short the life of a man who might have shone in the first rank in a
great monarchy. … The headsman bound the noble Levrier, armed men surrounded
him, and the martyr of law was conducted slowly to the castle-yard. All nature was
dumb, nothing broke the silence of that funeral procession; Charles’s agents moved
like shadows beneath the ancient walls of the castle. The moon, which had not
reached its first quarter, was near setting, and shed only a feeble gleam. It was too
dark to distinguish the beautiful mountains, in the midst of which stood the towers
whence they had dragged their victim; the trees and houses of Bonne were scarcely
visible; one or two torches, carried by the provost’s men, alone threw light upon this
cruel scene. On reaching the middle of the castle-yard the headsman stopped, and the
victim also. The ducal satellites silently formed a circle round them, and the
executioner prepared to discharge his office. Levrier was calm, the peace of a good
conscience supported him in this dread hour.
Alone in the night, in those sublime regions of the Alps, surrounded by the barbarous
figures of the Savoyard mercenaries, standing in that feudal courtyard which the
torches illumined with a sinister glare, the heroic champion of the law raised his eyes
to heaven, and said, ‘By God’s grace, I die without anxiety for the liberty of my
country and the authority of St. Peter!’ The grace of God, liberty, authority, these
main principles of the greatness of nations, were his last confession. The words had
hardly been uttered when the executioner swung round his sword, and the head of the
citizen rolled in the castle-yard. Immediately, as if struck with fear, the murderers
respectfully gathered up his remains and placed them in a coffin. ‘And his body was
laid in earth in the parish church of Bonne, with the head separate.’ At that moment
11
the moon set, and black darkness hid the stains of blood which Levrier had left on the
court-yard.”[7]
Charles of Savoy did not reflect that the victories of brute force, such as those he was
now winning, but pave the way for moral triumphs. With every head that fell by his
executioners, he deemed himself a stage nearer to the success he panted to attain.
Some illustrious heads had already fallen; so many more, say twenty, or it might be
thirty, and he would be Lord of Geneva; the small but much-coveted principality
would be part of Savoy, and the object so intently pursued by himself and his
ancestors for long years would be realised. The duke was but practising a deception
upon himself. Every head he cut off dug more deeply the gulf which divided him from
the sovereignty of Geneva; every drop of blood he spilt but strengthened the
resolution in the hearts of the patriots that never should the duke call them his
subjects.
“They never fail who die.
In a great cause: the block may soak their gore;
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls But still their spirit walks abroad.
Though years Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct
The world at last to freedom.”[8]
Nevertheless, what with stratagem this hour and violence the next - treachery within
Geneva and soldiers and cannon outside of it - it did seem as if the duke were making
way, and the proud little city must, by-and- by, lay its independence at his feet. In
fact, for a moment, Geneva did succumb. On the 15th of September, 1525, the duke
surprised the city with a numerous host. The patriots had nothing left them but
massacre or speedy flight. Fleeing through woods or mountainous defiles, pursued by
Savoyard archers, some escaped to Bern, others to Friberg. The duke, having entered
the city, summoned a council of such citizens as were still to be found in it, and with
the axes of his halberdiers suspended over their heads, these spiritless and lukewarm
men promised to accept him as their prince.[9] But the vow of allegiance given in the
“Council of Halberds” today was revoked on the morrow. The duke was at first
stunned, and next he was terrified, at this sudden revival of opposition, when he
believed it had been trampled out. Influenced by this mysterious fear, he hastily left
Geneva, never again to enter it, and let fall, after having seemingly secured it, what he
and his ancestors had been struggling for generations to grasp.[10]
The duke had but scattered the fire, not extinguished it. The parts of Switzerland to
which the patriots had fled were precisely those where the light of the Reformation
was breaking. At Bern and Friburg the exiles of Geneva had an opportunity of
studying higher models of freedom than any they had aforetime come in contact with.
They had been sent to school, and their hearts softened by adversity, were peculiarly
open to the higher teaching now addressed to them. How often in after-years was the
same thing repeated which we see realised in the case of these early champions of
freedom! Were not the patriotic citizens of Spain and Italy again and again chased to
the British shores? And for what end? That there they might study purer models, be
instructed in deeper and sounder principles, have their views of liberty rectified and
12
enlarged, and on their return to their own country might temper their zeal with
patience, fortify their courage with wisdom, and so speed the better in their efforts for
the emancipation of their fellow-subjects. Fruitful, indeed, were the months which the
Genevese exiles spent abroad. When they reunited in February, 1526, after the flight
of the duke, a new era returned with them. Their sufferings had elicited the sympathy,
and their characters had won the admiration, of the noblest among the citizens of the
States where they had been sojourning. They recognised the important bearing upon
Swiss liberty of the struggle which Geneva had maintained. It was the extreme citadel
of the Swiss territory towards the south; it barred the invader’s road from the Alps,
and it was impossible to withhold from the little town the need of praise for the
chivalry and devotion with which, single-handed, it had taken its stand at this Swiss
Thermopylae, and held it at all hazards.
But it was not right, they felt, to leave this city longer in its isolation. For their own
sakes, as well as for Geneva’s, they must extend the hand of friendship to it. An
alliance [11] offensive and defensive was formed between the three governments of
Bern, Friburg, and Geneva. If the conflicts of the latter city were not yet ended, it no
longer stood alone. By its side were now two powerful allies. Whoso touched its
independence, touched theirs. If the Gospel had not yet entered Geneva, its gates
stood open towards that quarter of the sky which the rising sun of the Reformation
was flooding with his beams.
13
CHAPTER 3
THE REFORM COMMENCED IN LAUSANNE AND
ESTABLISHED IN MORAT AND NEUCHATEL
Geneva had gone a long way towards independence. It had chased the duke across the
mountains to return no more. It had formed an alliance with Bern and Friburg without
waiting for the consent of its prince-bishop; this was in effect to hold his temporal
authority null, and to take the sovereignty into its own hands. Liberty had advanced a
stage on its road. Free Europe had enlarged its area; and that of bond Europe had, to
the same extent, been circumscribed: Rome saw the outposts of Progress so much
nearer her own gates. The Pope beheld bold and spirited citizens ignoring the sceptre
of their prince-bishop, converting it into a bauble; and the thought must have
suggested itself to him, might not the day come when his own more powerful rod
would be plucked from his hand, and broken in pieces, like that of his vassal-bishop
in Geneva?
But though on the road, Geneva had not yet arrived at the goal. She was not yet
crowned with the perfect liberty. A powerful oppressor had her in his grip, namely,
Rome. The tyrant, it is true, had been compelled to relax his hold, but he might tighten
his grasp unless Geneva should succeed in entirely disengaging herself. But she had
not yet got hold of the right weapon for such a battle. Berthelier assailed Rome on the
ground of ancient charters; Bonivard hurled against her the shafts of a revived
learning; Levrier maintained the fight with the sword of justice; but it needed that a
more powerful sword, even that of the Word of the living God, should be unsheathed,
before the tyrant could be wholly discomfited and the victory completely won. That
sword had been unsheathed, and the champions who were wielding it, advancing in
their victorious path, were every day coming nearer the gates of Geneva. When this
new liberty should be enthroned within her, then would her light break forth as the
morning, the black clouds which had so long hung about her would be scattered, and
the tyrants who had plotted her overthrow would tremble at her name, and stand afar
off for fear of that invisible Arm that guarded her. Let us turn to the movements
outside the city, which, without concert on the part of their originators, fall in with the
efforts of the champions of liberty within it for the complete emancipation of Geneva.
We have already met Farel. We have seen him, a mere lad, descending from the
mountains of Dauphine, entering himself a pupil in that renowned seminary of
knowledge and orthodoxy, the Sorbonne - contracting a close friendship with its most
illustrious doctor, Lefevre, accompanying him in his daily visits to the shrines of the
metropolis, and kneeling by the side of the venerable man before the images of the
saints. But soon the eyes both of teacher and pupil were opened; and Farel,
transferring that ardour of soul which had characterised him as a Papist to the side of
the Reformation, strove to rescue others from the frightful abyss of superstition in
which he himself had been so near perishing. Chased from France, as we have already
related, he turned his steps toward Switzerland.
It is the second Reformation in Switzerland that we are now briefly to sketch. The
commencement and progress of the first we have already traced. Beginning with the
preaching of Zwingle in the convent of Einsiedein, the movement in a little time
transferred itself to Zurich; and thence it rapidly spread to the neighbouring towns and
cantons in Eastern Helvetia, extending from Basle on the frontier of Germany on the
14
north, to Choire on the borders of Italy on the south. The Forest Cantons, however,
continued obedient to Rome. The adherents of the old faith and the champions of the
new met on the bloody field of Kappel. The sword gave the victory to Romanism. The
bravest and best of the citizens of Zurich lay stretched upon the battle-field. Among
the slain was Zwingle. With him, so men said and believed at the moment, had fallen
the Reformation.
In the grave of its most eloquent preacher and its most courageous defender lay
inferred the hopes of Swiss Protestantism. But though the calamity of Kappel arrested,
it did not extinguish, the movement; on the contrary, it tended eventually to
consolidate and quicken it by impressing upon its friends the necessity of union. In
after years, when Geneva came to occupy the place in the second Helvetian
movement which Zurich had done in the first, the division among the Reformed
cantons which had led to the terrible disaster of 1531 was avoided, and there was no
second field of Kappel.
Arriving in Switzerland (1526), Farel took up his abode at Aigle, and there
commenced that campaign which had for its object to conquer to Christ a brave and
hardy people dwelling amid the glaciers of the eternal mountains, or in fertile and
sunny valleys, or on the shores of smiling lakes. The darkness of ages overhung the
region, but Farel had brought hither the light. “Taking the name of Ursin,” says
Ruchat, “and acting the part of schoolmaster,[1] he mingled, with the elements of
secular instruction, the seeds of Divine knowledge. Through the minds of the children
he gained access to those of the parents; and when he had gathered a little flock:
around him, he threw off his disguise, and announced himself as ‘William Farel,’ the
minister.” Though he had dropped from the clouds the priests could not have been
more affrighted, nor the people more surprised, than they were at the sudden
metamorphosis of the schoolmaster. Farel instantly mounted the pulpit. His bold look,
his burning eye, his voice of thunder, his words, rapid, eloquent, and stamped with the
majesty of truth, reached the conscience, and increased the number of those in the
valley of Aigle who were already prepared to take the Word of God for their guide.
But not by one sermon can the prejudices of ages be dispelled. The cures were filled
with wrath at the bold intruder, who had entered their quiet valley, had shaken their
authority, till now so secure, and had disturbed beliefs as ancient, and as firmly
founded, the mountaineers believed, as the peaks that overhung their valleys.
The priests and people raised a great clamour, being supported by the cantonal
officials, in particular by Jacob de Roverea, Lord of Cret, and Syndic of Aigle.
Hearing of the opposition, the Lords of Bern, whose jurisdiction comprehended Aigle
and its neighbourhood, sent a commission to Farel empowering him to explain the
Scriptures to the people.[2] The mandate was posted up on the church doors,[3] but
instead of calming the tempest this intervention of authority only stirred it into
fourfold fury. It would seem as if the Gospel would conquer alone, or not at all. The
priests burned with zeal for the safety of those flocks to whom before they had hardly
ever addressed a word of instruction;[4] the Syndic took their side, and the placards of
the magistrates of Bern were torn down.
“That can not be the Gospel of Christ,” said the priests, “seeing the preaching of it
does not bring peace, but war.” This enlightened logic, of a piece with that which
should accuse the singing of the nightingale in a Swiss valley as the cause of the
descent of the avalanches, convinced the mountaineers. The inhabitants of the four
15
districts into which the territory of Aigle was divided - namely, Aigle, Bex, Ollon, and
the Ormonds - as one man unsheathed the sword.[5] The shepherds who fed their
flocks beneath the glaciers of the Diablerets, hearing that the Church was in danger,
rushed like an avalanche to the rescue. The herdsmen of the Savoy mountains,
crossing the Rhone, also hastened to do battle in the good old cause. Tumults broke
out at Box, at Ollon, and other places. Farel saw the tempest gathering, but remained
undismayed. Those who had received the Gospel from him were prepared to defend
him; but were it not better to prevent the effusion of blood, to which the matter was
fast tending, and go and preach the Gospel in other parts of this lovely but benighted
land?
This was the course he adopted; but, in retiring, he had the satisfaction of thinking
that he had planted the standard of the cross at the foot of the mighty Dent de
Morcles, and that he left behind him men whose eyes had been opened, and who
would never again bow the knee to the idols their fathers had served,[6] Soon
thereafter, Aigle and Bex, by majorities, gave their voices for the Reform; but the
parishes that lay higher up amid the mountains declared that they would abide in the
old faith.
Whither should Farel go next? Looking from the point where the Rhone, rolling under
the sublime peaks of the Dent du Midi and the Dent de Morelos, pours its discoloured
floods into the crystal Leman, one espies, on the other side of the lake, the vine-clad
hill on which Lausanne is seated. In Popish times this was a city of importance. Its tall
cathedral towers soared aloft on their commanding site, while the lovely region held
fast in the yoke of the Pope slumbered at their feet. Lausanne had a bishop, a college
of rich canons, and a numerous staff of priests. It had besides an annual fair, to which
troops of pilgrims resorted, to pray before the image of “Our Lady,” and to buy
indulgences and other trinkets: a traffic that enriched at once the Church and the
towns-people. But though one could hardly stir a step in its streets without meeting a
“holy man” or a pious pilgrim, the place was a very sink of corruption.[7] There was
need, verily, of a purifying stream being turned in upon this filthy place. Farel essayed
to do so, but his first attempt was not successful, and he turned away upon another
tack.[8]
Repulsed from Lausanne, Farel traversed the fertile country which divides the Leman
from the Lake of Neuchatel, and arrived at Morat. This, in our day, insignificant
place, was then a renowned and fortified town. It had sustained three famous sieges,
the first in 1032 against the Emperor Conrad, the second in 1292 against the Emperor
Rodolph of Hapsburg, and the third in 1476 against Charles, last Duke of Burgundy.
Situated between France and Germany, the two languages were spoken equally in it.
Farel brought with him an authorisation from the Lords of Bern empowering him to
preach, not only throughout the extent of their own territories, but also in that of their
allies, provided they gave consent.[9]
Here his preaching was not without fruit; but the majority of the citizens electing to
abide still by Rome, he retraced his steps, and presented himself a second time before
that episcopal city that overlooks the blue Leman, and which had so recently driven
him from its gates. He was ambitious of subduing this stronghold of darkness to the
Saviour. This time he brought with him a letter from the Lords of Bern, who had
jurisdiction in those parts, and naturally wished to see their allies of the same faith
with themselves; but even this failed to procure him liberty to evangelist in Lausanne.
16
The Council of Sixty read the letter of their Excellencies of Bern, and civilly replied
that “It belonged not to them, but to the bishop and chapter, to admit preachers into
the pulpits.” The Council of Two Hundred also found that they had no power in the
matter.[10] Farel had again to depart and leave those whom he would have led into
the pastures of truth to the care of shepherds who knew so in to feed but were so
skilful to fleece their flocks.
Again turning northwards, he made a short halt at Morat. This time the victory of the
Gospel was complete, and this important town was placed (1529) in the list of
Protestant cities.[11] Farel felt that a mighty unseen power was travelling with him,
opening the understandings, melting the hearts of men, and he would press on and win
other cities and cantons to the Gospel. He crossed the lovely lake and presented
himself in Neuchatel, which had lately returned under the sceptre of its former
mistress, Jeanne de Hochberg, the only daughter and heiress of Philip, Count of
Neuchatel, who died in 1503. [12] She regained in her widowhood the principality of
Neuchatel, which she had lost in the lifetime of her husband, Louis d’Orleans, Duke
of Longueville. No one could enter this city without having ocular demonstration that
religion was the dominant interest in it - meaning thereby a great cathedral on a
conspicuous site, with a full complement of canons, priests, and monks, who
furnished the usual store of pomps, dramas, indulgences, banquetings, and scandals.
In the midst of a devotion of this sort, Neuchatel was startled by a man of small
stature, red beard, glittering eye, and stentorian voice, who stood up in the marketplace, and announced that he had brought a religion, not from Rome, but from the
Bible.
The men with shaven crowns were struck dumb with astonishment. When at length
they found their voices, they said, “Let us beat out his brains.” “Duck him, duck him,”
cried others.[13] They fought with such weapons as they had; their ignorance forbade
their opposing doctrine with doctrine. Farel lifted up his voice above their clamour.
His preaching was felt to be not an idle tale, nor a piece of incomprehensible
mysticism, but words of power - the words of God. Neuchatel was carried by
storm.[14] It did not as yet formally declare for Reform; but it was soon to do so.
Having kindled the fire, and knowing that all the efforts of the priests would not
succeed in extinguishing it, Farel departed to evangelise in the mountains and valleys
which lie around the smiling waters of Morat and Neuchatel. It was winter (January,
1530), and cold, hunger, and weariness were his frequent attendants. Every hour,
more-over, he was in peril of his life. The priests perfectly understood that if they did
not make away with him he would make away with “religion” - that is, with their
tithes and offerings, their processions and orgies. They did all in their power to save
“religion.” They suspended their quarrels with one another, they stole some hours
from their sleep, they even stole some hours from the table in their zeal to warn their
flocks against the “wolf,” and impress them with a salutary dread of what their fate
would be, should they become his prey. On one occasion, in the Val de Ruz, in the
mountains that overhang the Lake of Neuchatel, the Reformer was seized and beaten
almost to death.[15]
Nothing, however, could stop him. He would, at times, mount the pulpit while the
priest was in the act of celebrating mass at the altar, and drown the chants of the
missal by the thunder of his eloquence. This boldness had diverse results. Sometimes
the old bigotry would resume its sway, and the audience would pull the preacher
17
violently out of the pulpit; at other times the arrow of conviction would enter. The
priest would hastily strip himself of stole and chasuble, and cast the implements of
sacrifice from his hands, while the congregation would demolish the altar, remove the
images, and give in their adhesion to the new faith. In three weeks’ time four villages
of the region had embraced the Reformed faith. The first of these was the village of
Kertezers, the church of which had been given in the year 962 to the Abbey of
Payerne, by Queen Berthe, wife of Rodolph II., King of Burgundy, foundress of the
abbey. Since that time - that is, during 568 years - the religious of Payerne had been
the patrons of that church, the cure of which was their vicar. As the Reformed were no
longer served by him, they petitioned their superiors at Bern for a Reformed pastor.
Their request was granted, and it was arranged that the Popish cure and the Protestant
minister should divide the stipend between them.[16] The cups, pictures, marbles, and
other valuables of the churches were sold, and therewith were provided stipends for
the pastors, hospitals for the poor and sick, schools for the youth, and if aught
remained it was given to the State.[17] The zeal of the citizens of Meiry outran their
discretion. They overturned the altars and images before the Reformation had
obtained a majority of votes. This furnished occasion to the Lords of Friburg to
complain to those of Bern that their subjects in the Jura were infringing the settlement
that regulated the progress of the Protestant faith. A few weeks, however, put all right,
by giving a majority of votes in Meiry to the Reformation. Thus did the Gospel cast
down the strongholds of error, and its preacher, in the midst of weakness, was
triumphant. The spring and summer sufficed to establish the Reformed faith in great
part of this region.
The Protestant hero Farel was now advancing to complete his conquest of Neuchatel.
During his absence the Reformation had been fermenting. He entered the city at the
right moment. Despite the opposition of the princess, of George de Rive, her deputy,
and the priests, who sounded the tocsin to rouse the people, the magistrates, after
deliberation, passed a decree opening the cathedral to the Reformed worship; and the
citizens, forming round Farel, and climbing the hill on which the cathedral stood,
placed him in the pulpit, notwithstanding the resistance of the canons. The solemnity
of the crisis hushed the vast congregation into stillness. Farel’s sermon was one of the
most powerful he had ever delivered, and when he closed, lo a mighty wind, felt
though it could not be seen, passed over the people! They all at once cried out, “We
will follow the Protestant religion, both we and our children; and in it will we live and
die.”
Having restored the Gospel with its sublime doctrines and its worship in the spirit, the
Neuchatelans felt that they had no longer need of those symbols by which Popery sets
forth its mysteries, and through which the material worship of its votaries is offered.
They proceeded forthwith to purge the church: they dismantled the altars, broke the
images, tore down the pictures and crucifixes, and carrying them out, cast them down
from the summit of the terrace on which the cathedral stands. At their feet slept the
blue lake, beyond was the fertile champaign, and afar, in the south, a chain of
glittering peaks, with the snowy crown of Mont Blanc rising grandly over all; but not
an eye that day was turned on this glorious panorama. They had broken from their
own and their children’s neck an ancient yoke, and were intent only on obliterating all
the signs and instruments of their former slavery. In perpetual remembrance of this
great day, the Neuchatelans inscribed on a pillar of the cathedral the words - ON THE
18
23RD OCTOBER, 1530, IDOLATRY WAS OVERTHROWN AND REMOVED
FROM THIS CHURCH BY THE CITIZENS.[18]
19
CHAPTER 4
TUMULTS - SUCCESSES - TOLERATION
WAS the storm that swept over Neuchatel on the 23rd of October, and which cleansed
its cathedral-church of the emblems of superstition, a passing gust, or one of those
great waves which indicate the rising of the tide in the spiritual atmosphere? Was it an
outburst of mob-violence, provoked by the greed and tyranny of the priests, or was it
the strong and emphatically expressed resolution of men who knew and loved the
truth? If the former, the idols would again be set up; if the latter, they had fallen to
rise no more. This was tested on the 4th of November following. On that eventful day
the citizens of Neuchatel, climbing the hill on which stood the governor’s castle, hard
by the cathedral that still bore traces of the recent tempest, in altars overturned, niches
empty, and images disfigured, presented themselves before the governor and deputies
from Bern. They had assembled to vote on the question whether Romanism or
Protestantism should be the religion of Neuchatel. A majority of eighteen votes gave
the victory to the Reformation. From that day (November 4, 1530) conscience was
free in Neuchatel; no one was compelled to abandon Popery, but the cathedral was
henceforward appropriated to the Protestant worship, and the Reformation was legally
established.[1]
Vallangin, the town of next importance in this part of the Jura, followed soon
thereafter the example Neuchatel. The issue here was precipitated by a shameful
expedient to which the Papists had recourse, and which was of a sort that history
refuses to chronicle. It was a fair-day; Antoine Marcourt, the Pastor of Neuchatel, was
preaching in the market-place. A large and attentive congregation was listening to
him, when a revolting spectacle was exhibited which was contrived to affront the
preacher, insult the audience, and drive the Gospel from the place amid jeers and
laughter.
The trick recoiled upon its authors. It was Popery that had to flee. A sudden gust of
indignation shook the crowd. The multitudes rushed toward the cathedral. Who shall
now save the saints? The priests have unchained winds which it is beyond their power
to control. Altar, image, and monumental statue, all went down before the tempest.
The relics were scattered about. Even the rich oriels, which flecked, with their
glorious tints, stone floor and massive column, were not spared. The edifice, all aglow
but a few moments before with the curious and beautiful picturings of chisel and
pencil, was now a wreck. The popular vengeance was not yet appeased. The furious
multitude was next seen directing its course towards the residences of the canons. The
terrified clerics had already fled to the woods, but if their persons escaped, their
houses were sacked.
By-and-by the storm spent itself, and calmer feelings returned to the breasts of the
citizens. They ascended the hill on which stood the castle of the Countess of Arberg,
who governed Vallangin, under the suzerainty of Bern. The authorities trembled when
they saw them approach, and were greatly relieved when they learned that they had
come with no more hostile intent than to demand the punishment of the perpetrators
of the outrage. The countess gave orders for the punishment of the guilty, though she
was suspected of connivance in the affair. As to all beyond, the matter was referred to
Bern, and their Excellencies decided that the townspeople should pay for the works of
art which they had destroyed, and that the countess in return should grant the free
20
profession of the Reformed faith. The sum in which the citizens were amerced we do
not know, but it must have been large indeed if it did not leave them immense gainers
by the exchange.[2]
By a sort of intuition it was Geneva that Farel all along had in his eye. The victories
which he won, and won with such rapidity and brilliancy, at the foot of the Jura, and
on the shores of its lakes, were but affairs of outposts. They were merely steppingstones upon his road, towards the conquest of that heroic little city, which occupied a
site where three great empires touched one another, and where he longed to plant the
Protestant standard. The idea was ever borne in upon his mind that Geneva had a great
part before it, that it was destined to become the capital of Swiss Protestantism, and,
in part, of French and Savoyard Protestantism also; for its higher destiny he did not
dare to forecast. Therefore he rejoiced in every victory he gained, seeing himself so
much the nearer what he felt must be his crowning conquest. But like a wise general
he would not advance too fast; he would leave behind him no post of the enemy
untaken; he intended that Geneva should be conquered once for all; he would enter its
gates only after he had subdued the country around, and hang out the banner of the
Gospel upon its ramparts when Geneva had become mistress of a renovated region.
And it pleased the Captain whom he served to give him his desire.
There was a short halt in the march of this spiritual conqueror. At St. Blaise, on the
northern shore of the Lake of Neuchatel, Farel was set upon by a mob, instigated by
the priests, and almost beaten to death. Covered with bruises, spitting. blood, and so
disfigured as scarcely to be recognized by his friends, he was put into a small boat,
carried across the lake, and nursed at Morat. He had barely recovered his strength
when he rose from bed, and set out for Orbe to evangelise. Orbe was an ancient town
at the foot of the Jura, on the picturesque banks of a stream of the same name. It lay
nearer Geneva than Neuchatel. Watered by rivulets from the mountains, the gardens
that surrounded it were of more than ordinary beauty and luxuriance, but spiritually
Orbe was a wilderness, a “land where no water was.” The Reformer would have given
it “living water;” but, unhappily, Orbe, with its numerous priests, its rich convents,
and its famous sisters of St. Claire, some of whom were of royal lineage, did not thirst
for such water. Its good Catholics strove to render Farel’s journey of no avail. With
this view they had recourse to expedients, some of which were tragic. One of them is
worth chronicling for its originality. It was agreed to outmanoeuvre the evangelist by
staying away - a masterly policy in the case of a preacher so attractive - but in one
instance the policy was departed from. One day, when Farel entered the pulpit, a most
extraordinary scene presented itself. He beheld three adults only present, while the
church was nearly filled with children - “brats.” The latter lay perfectly flat as if
sound asleep. But the moment Farel began to preach they jumped up, as puppets do
when the string is pulled, and began to sing and dance, to laugh and scream. Farel’s
voice was completely drowned by the noise. This scene continued for some time; at
length the little ragamuffins made their exit in an uproar of screaming and howling.
Farel was now left in quiet, but with no one to listen to him. “And this,” says a Popish
chronicler, “was the first sermon preached in the town of Orbe.”[3]
Nevertheless the Reformer persevered. Soon a small but select number of converts
gathered round him, some of them of good position in society. On Pentecost, the 28th
of May, Farel celebrated the Lord’s Supper, for the first time in Orbe, to a little
congregation of seven. Having preached in the morning, the bread and wine were
21
placed on the table, and the communicants received them kneeling. Farel demanded of
them whether they forgave one another, and receiving an affirmative reply, he
distributed the elements to them. In the afternoon the Papists entered the church, and
commenced the chanting of mass.”[4]
Farel was beginning to think that Orbe was already won, when unhappily these bright
prospects were suddenly dashed by the indiscreet zeal of one of the evangelists.
Thinking to reform Orbe by a coup de main, this person, with the help of twelve
companions, pulled down one day all the images in its seven churches.[5] The
destruction of the idols but prolonged the reign of idolatry. A reaction set in, and it
was not till twenty years thereafter that Orbe placed itself in the rank of Reformed
cities.
But if Orbe remained Roman it had the honour of giving to the Reformation one of its
loveliest spirits and most persuasive preachers. Peter Viret was born in this town in
1511. His father was a wool-dresser. Sweet, studious, and of elevated soul, the son
gave himself to the service of the altar. he was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris,
where he remained about three years.
He attained the peace of the Gospel, like most of the Reformers, by passing through
the waters of anguish; but in his case “the floods” were not so deep as in that of
Luther and Calvin. When he returned to his native city, he entered the pulpit at the
entreaty of Farel, and preached to his townsmen. The sweetness of his voice, the
beauty of his ideas, and the modesty of his manner held his hearers captive. It was
seen that he who distributes to his servants as he pleases for the edification of his
body, the Church, had given to Viret his special gift. He did not possess the glowing
imagery and ardour of Luther, nor the fiery energy of Farel, nor the thrilling power of
Zwingle, nor the calm, towering, and all-mastering genius of Calvin; but his
preaching, nevertheless, had a charm which was not found in that of any of those
great men. Clear, tender, persuasive aided by the stir-cry tones of his voice, and the
moral glow which lighted up his features, its singular fascination and power were
attested, in after-years, by the immense crowds which gathered round him in
Switzerland and the south of France, whenever he stood up to preach. He was indeed
a polished shaft in the hand of the Almighty.[6]
Farel had to fall back from before Orbe; but if he retreated it was to wage fresh
combats and to win new victories. He next visited Grandson, at the western extremity
of the Lake of Neuchatel. The priests, alarmed at his arrival, rose in arms, and drove
him away. Bern now interposed its authority for his protection. Their Excellencies
would compel no one to become a Protestant, but they were determined to permit the
two faiths to be heard, and the citizens to make their choice between the sermon and
the mass. Taking with him Viret, Farel returned to Grandson, where he was joined by
a third, De Glutinis, an evangelist from the Bernese Jura. They preached Sunday and
weekday. The heresy was breaking in like a torrent.
The priests strove to rear a bulwark against the devastating flood. They refuted, to the
best of their ability, the Protestant sermons. They called to their aid popular preachers
from the neighbouring towns, and they organised processions and sacred chants to
invigorate the zeal and piety of their adherents. The tide, notwithstanding, continued
to set in a contrary direction to that in which they wished to force it to flow. Arming
themselves, they came to church to refute what they heard spoken there, not with
22
arguments, but with blows. The sacristan threatened Farel with a pistol which he had
concealed under his cloak; another attempted to assassinate Glutinis with a poignard.
The ministers managed to mount the pulpits, but were pulled from them, thrown down
on the floor, trampled upon, beaten, and when their friends rushed forward to defend
them, the two parties fought over their prostrate bodies, and a regular battle was seen
going forward in the church.[7]
But a great good resulted from these lamentable proceedings. The matter was brought
before the Great Conference, which assembled, as we have previously related, at Bern
in January, 1532. The Swiss were drifting toward a civil war. It was hopeless to think
of conciliating the two parties that divided the nation, but was it necessary therefore
that they should cut one another’s throats? Might it not be possible rather to bear with
one another’s opinions? This was the device hit upon. It might appear to Rome, as it
still appears to her, an execrable one, but to the Conference it appeared preferable to
the crime and horror of internecine strife. Thus out of that necessity which is said to
be the mother of invention, came the idea of toleration. We deem the mass idolatry,
said Protestant Bern, but we shall prevent no one going to it. We deem the Protestant
sermon heresy, rejoined Popish Friburg, but we shall give liberty to all who wish to
attend it. Thus on the basis of liberty of worship was the public peace maintained.
This dates in Switzerland from January, 1532. [8] Toleration was adopted as a policy
before it had been accepted as a principle. It was practiced as a necessity of the State
before it had been promulgated as a right of conscience. It was only when it came to
be recognised and claimed in the latter character as a right founded on a Divine
charter - namely, the Word of God - and held irrespective of the permission or the
interdiction of man, that toleration established inviolably its existence and reign.
In this manner did Farel carry on the campaign. Every hour he encountered new
perils; every day there awaited him fresh persecutions; but it more than consoled him
to think that he was winning victory after victory. He remembered that similar foes
had beset the path of the first preachers of the Gospel in the cities of Asia Minor at the
beginning of the Christian dispensation, to those which obstructed his own in the
towns and villages of this region. But in the face of that opposition, how marvellous
had his success been - not his, but that of the invisible Power that was moving before
him! Among the towns won to the Gospel - the beginning of his strength - he could
count Neuchatel, and Vallangin, and Morat, and Grandson, and Aigle, and Bex, and
partially Orbe. Every day the fields were growing ripe unto the harvest; able and
zealous labourers were coming to his aid in the reaping of it. By-and-by he hoped to
carry home the last sheaf, in the conversion of the little town which nestled at the
southern extremity of the Leman Lake, to which his longing eyes were so often
turned. What joy would be his, could he pluck it from the talons of Savoy and the
grasp of Rome, and give it to the Gospel!
23
CHAPTER 5
FABEL ENTERS GENEVA
There is no grander valley in Switzerland than the basin of the Rhone, whose
collected floods, confined within smiling shores, form the Leman. As one looks
toward sunrise, he sees on his right the majestic line of the white Alps; and on his left,
the picturesque and verdant Jura. The vast space which these magnificent chains
enclose is variously filled in. Its grandest feature is the lake. It is blue as the sky, and
motionless as a mirror. Nestling on its shores, or dotting its remoter banks, is many a
beautiful villa, many a picturesque town, almost drowned in the affluent foliage of
gardens and rich vines, which clothe the country that slopes upward in an easy swell
toward the mountains. In the remoter distance the eye ranges over a vast stretch of
pasture-lands and corn-fields, and forests of chestnuts and pine-trees. Above the dark
woods soar the great peaks, as finely robed as the plains, though after a different
manner - not with flowers and verdure, but with glaciers and snows.
But this fertile and lovely land, at the time we write of, was one of the strongholds of
the Papacy. Cathedrals, abbacies, rich convents, and famous shrines, which attracted
yearly troops of pilgrims, were thickly planted throughout the valley of the Leman.
These were so many fortresses by which Rome kept the country in subjection. In each
of these fortresses was placed a numerous garrison. Priests and monks swarmed like
the locusts. The land was fat, yet one wonders how it sustained so numerous and
ravenous a host. In Geneva alone there were nine hundred priests. In the other towns
and villages around the lake, and at the foot of the Jura, they were not less numerous
in proportion. Cowls and shorn crowns, frocks and veils, were seen everywhere. This
generation of tonsured men and veiled women formed the “Church;” and the dues
they exacted of the lay population, and the processions, chants, exorcisms, and blows
which they gave them in return, were styled “religion.” The man who would go down
into this region of sevenfold blackness, and attack these sons of the Roman Anak,
who here tyrannised so mercilessly over their wretched victims, had indeed need of a
stout heart and a strong faith.
He had need to be clad in the armour of God in going forth to such a battle. This man
was William Farel. The spiritual campaigns of the sixteenth century produced few
such champions. “His sermons,” says D’Aubigne, “were actions quite as much as a
battle is.” We have already chronicled what he did in these “wars of the Lord” in the
Pays de Vaud; we are now to be engaged in the narrative of his work in Geneva.
We have brought down the eventful story of this little city to the time when it formed
an alliance with Bern and Friburg. This brought it a little help in the battle which it
had maintained hitherto single-handed against tremendous odds. The duke had left it,
and placed the Alps between himself and it, but he had not lost sight of it. Despairing
of being able to reduce it by his own power, he sent a messenger to Charles V. at
Augsburg, entreating him to send his soldiers and put him in possession of Geneva.
Most willingly would the emperor have put these haughty citizens under the feet of
the duke, but his own hands were at that moment too full to attempt any new
enterprise. The Lutheran princes of Germany, as stubborn in their own way as the
Genevans were in theirs, were occasioning Charles a world of anxiety, and he could
give the duke nothing but promises. The emperor’s plan, as communicated to the
duke’s envoy, was first to “crush the German Protestants, and then bring his mailed
24
hand down on the Huguenots of Geneva.”[1] Geneva meanwhile had respite. The
Treaty of Nuremberg shortly afterwards set Charles V. free on the side of Germany,
and left him at liberty to convert the promises he had made the duke into deeds. But
the hour to strike had now passed; a mightier power than the emperor had entered
Geneva.
Returning from the Waldensian synod in the valley of Angrogna, in October, 1532,
Farel, who was accompanied by Saunter, could not resist his long-cherished desire of
visiting Geneva. His arrival was made known to the friends of liberty in that city,[2]
and the very next day the elite of the citizens waited on him at his inn, the Tour Perce,
on the left bank of the Rhone. He preached twice, setting forth the glorious Gospel of
the grace of God. The topic of his first address was Holy Scripture, the fountain-head
of all Divine knowledge, in contradistinction to tradition of Fathers, or decree of
Council, and the only authority on earth to which the conscience of man was subject.
This opened the gates of a higher liberty than these men had yet understood, or
aspired to. They had been shedding their blood for their franchises, but now the
Reformer showed them a way by which their souls might escape from the dark
dungeon in which tradition and human authority had succeeded in shutting them up.
The next day Farel proclaimed to them the great pardon of God - which consisted,
according to his exposition, in the absolutely free forgiveness of sinners bestowed on
the footing of an absolutely full and perfect expiation of human guilt; and this he
placed in studious opposition to the pardon of the Pope, which had to be bought with
money or with penances. This was a still wider opening of the gates of a new world to
these men. “This,” said Farel, “is the Gospel; and this, and nothing short of this, is
liberty, inasmuch as it is the enfranchisement of the whole man, body, conscience,
and soul.”[3] The words of the Reformer did not fall on dull or indifferent hearts. The
generous soil, already watered with the blood of the martyrs of liberty, now received
into its bosom a yet more precious seed. The Old Geneva passed away, and in its
place came a New Geneva, which the wiles of the Pope should not be able to
circumvent, nor the arms of the emperor to subdue.
The priests learned, with a dismay bordering on despair, that the man who had passed
like a devastating tempest over the Pays de Vand, his track marked by altars
overturned, images demolished, and canons, monks, and nuns fleeing before him in
terror, had come hither also. What was to be done? Effectual steps must be promptly
taken, otherwise all would be lost. The gods of Geneva would perish as those of
Neuchatel had done.[4]
Farel and Saunter were summoned before the town council.[5] The majority of the
magistrates received them with angry looks, some of them with bitter words; but
happily Farel carried letters from their Excellencies of Bern, with whom Geneva was
in alliance, and whom the councillors feared to offend. The Reformers, thus protected,
after some conference, left the council-chamber unharmed.
Their acquittal awakened still more the fears of the priests, and as their fear grew so
did their anger. Armed clerics were parading the streets; there was a great flutter in
the convents. “A shabby little preacher,” said one of the sisters of St. Claire, with a
toss of the head, “Master William Farel, has just arrived.”[6] The townspeople were
breaking out in tumults. What next was thought of? An episcopal council met, and
under a pretext of debating the question it summoned the two preachers before them.
Two magistrates accompanied them to see that they returned alive. Some of the
25
episcopal council had come with arms under their sacerdotal robes. Such was their
notion of a religious discussion. The Reformers were asked by what authority they
preached? Farel replied by quoting the Divine injunction, “Preach the Gospel to every
creature.” The meek majesty of the answer only provoked a sneer. In a few minutes
the council became excited; the members started to their feet; they flung themselves
upon the two evangelists; they pulled them about; they spat upon them, exclaiming,
“Come, Farel, you wicked devil, what makes you go up and down thus? Whence
comest thou? What business brings you to our city to throw us into trouble?” When
the noise had a little subsided, Farel made answer courageously, “I am not a devil; I
am sent by God as an ambassador of Jesus Christ; I preach Christ crucified - dead for
our sins - risen again for our justification; he that believeth upon him hath eternal life;
he that believeth not is condemned.” “He blasphemes; he is worthy of death,”
exclaimed some. “To the Rhone, to the Rhone!” shouted others; “it were better to
drown him in the Rhone than permit this wicked Lutheran to trouble all the people.”
“Speak the words of Christ, not of Caiaphas,” replied Farel. This was the signal for a
yet more ferocious outbreak. “Kill the Lutheran hound,” exclaimed they. Dom
Bergeri, proctor to the chaplain, cried, “Strike, strike!” They closed round Farel and
Saunier; they took hold of them; they struck at them. One of the Grand Vicar’s
servants, who carried an arquebus, levelled it at Farel; he pulled the trigger; the
priming flashed.[7] The clatter of arms under the vestments of the priests foreboded a
tragic issue to the affair; and doubtless it would speedily have terminated in this
melancholy fashion, but for the vigorous interposition of the two magistrates.[8]
Rescued from the perils of the episcopal council-hall, worse dangers, if possible,
threatened them outside. A miscellaneous crowd of clerics and laics, armed with clubs
and swords, waited in the street to inflict upon the two heretics the vengeance which it
was just possible they might escape at the hands of the vicar and canons.[9] When the
mob saw them appear, they brandished their weapons, and raising a frightful noise of
hissing and howling, made ready to rush upon them. It looked as if they were fated to
die upon the spot. At the critical moment a band of halberdiers, headed by the syndics,
came up, and closing their ranks round the two Reformers escorted them, through the
scowling and hooting crowd, to their inn, the Tour Perce. A guard was stationed at the
door all night. Next morning, at an early hour, appeared a few friends, who taking
Farel and Saunter, and leading them to the shore of the lake, made them embark in a
small boat, and, carrying them over the quiet waters, landed them in the Pays de
Vand, at an unfrequented spot between Merges and Lausanne. Thence Farel and
Saunter went on to Grandson. Such was the issue of Farel’s first essay in a city on
which his eye and heart had so long rested. It did not promise much; but he had
accomplished more than he at the moment knew.
In fact, Farel was too powerful, and his name was of too great prestige, to begin the
work. The seeds of such a work must be deposited by a gentle hand, they must grow
up in a still air, and only when they have taken root may the winds be suffered to
blow. Of this Farel seems to have become sensible, for we find him looking around
for a humbler and feebler instrument to send to Geneva. He cast eyes on the young
and not very courageous Froment, and dispatched him to a city where he himself had
almost been torn in pieces.[10] While Froment was on his way another visitor
unexpectedly appeared to the Genevans. A comet blazed forth in their sky. What did it
portend? War, said some; the rising of a Divine light, said others.[11]
26
Froment’s appearance was so mean that even the Huguenots, as the friends of liberty
and progress in Geneva were styled, turned their backs upon him. What was he to do?
Froment recalled Farel’s example at Aigle, and resolved to turn schoolmaster. He
hired a room at the Croix d’Or, near the Molard, and speedily his fame as a teacher of
youth filled Geneva. The lessons Froment taught the children in the school, the
children taught the parents when they went home. Gradually, and in a very short
while, the class grew into a congregation of adults, the school-room into a church, and
the teacher into an evangelist. Reading out a chapter he would explain it with
simplicity and impressiveness. Thus did he scatter the seed upon hearts; souls were
converted; and the once despised evangelist, who had been, like a greater missionary,
“a root out of a dry ground” to the Genevans, now saw crowds pressing around him
and drinking in his words.[12]
This was in the end of the year 1532. The work proceeded apace. Among the converts
were certain rich and honourable women: we mention specially Paula, the wife of
John Lever, and Claudine, her sister-in-law. Their conversion made a great sensation
in Geneva. By their means their husbands and many of their acquaintances were
drawn to hear the schoolmaster at the Croix d’Or, and embraced the Gospel. From the
Pays de Vaud, arrived New Testaments, tracts, and controversial works; and these,
distributed among the citizens, opened the eyes of many who had not courage to go
openly to the schoolmaster’s sermon. Tradesmen and people of all conditions enrolled
themselves among the disciples. The social principle of Christianity began to operate;
those who were of one faith drew together into one society, and meeting at stated
times in one another’s houses, they strove to instruct and strengthen each other. Such
were the early days of the Genevan Church.
First came faith - faith in the free forgiveness of the Gospel - next came good works A
reformation of manners followed in Geneva. The Reformed ceased to frequent those
fashionable amusements in which they had formerly delighted. They banished finery
from their dress, and luxury from their banquets. They made no more costly presents
to the saints, and the; money thus saved they bestowed on the poor, and especially the
Protestant exiles whom the rising storms of persecution in France compelled to flee to
the gates of Geneva as to a harbour of refuge. There was hardly a Protestant of note
who did not receive into his house one of these expatriated Christians,[13] and in this
way Geneva learned that hospitality for which it is renowned to this day.
The congregation of Froment in a few weeks grew too large for the modest limits of
the Croix d’Or. One day a greater concourse than usual assembling at his chapel door,
and pressing in vain for admittance, the cry was raised, “To the Molard!” To the
Molard the crowd marched, carrying with them the preacher. It was New Year’s Day,
1533. The Molard was the market-square, and here, mounted on a fish-stall - the first
public pulpit in Geneva - Froment preached to the multitude. It was his “New Year’s
gift,” as it has been called. Having prayed, he began his sermon [14] by announcing
that “free pardon” - the ray from the open heavens which leads the eye upward to the
throne of a Saviour - which all the Reformers, treading in the steps of the apostles,
placed in the foreground of their teaching. From this he went on to present to his
hearers the lineaments of the “false prophets” and “idolatrous priests” as painted in
the Old and New Testaments, pointing out the exact verification of these features in
the Romish hierarchy of their own day. Froment’s delineations were so minute, so
graphic and fearless, that his hearers saw the prophets of Baal, and the Pharisees of a
27
corrupt Judaism, living over again in the priests of their own city. The preacher had
become warm with his theme, and the audience were kindling in sympathy, when a
sound of hurrying footsteps was heard behind them. On turning round a band of
armed men was seen entering the square. The lieutenant of the city, the procuratorfiscal, the soldiers, and a number of armed priests, exasperated by this public
manifestation of the converts, had come to arrest Froment, and disperse the assembly.
Had the preacher been captured, it is not doubtful what his fate would have been, but
the band returned without their prey. His friends carried him off to a place of
hiding.[15]
The agitation of the citizens and the violence of the priests made the farther
prosecution of Froment’s ministry in Geneva hopeless. He withdrew quietly from the
city, and returned to his former charge in the village of Yvonand, at the foot of the
Jura.[16] The foundations of Protestant Geneva had been laid: greater builders were to
rear the edifice.
28
CHAPTER 6
GENEVA ON THE BRINK OF CIVIL WAR
The workman had retired, but the work went on. The Protestants, now grown to a
goodly number, and full of zeal and hope, met in each other’s houses - the catacombs
of the young Church, as an old author styles these meetings. They read the Scriptures
in Lefevre’s translation; they elected Guerin, one of the more intelligent and esteemed
among them, to “the charge of the Word,” in the room of Froment; and they still
further strengthened their bond of union by partaking together of the Lord’s Supper. It
occasioned them some anxiety where they should find a spot sufficiently secluded for
the celebration of the ordinance. The place ultimately made choice of was a little
walled garden near the city gates.[1]
The time of year was the middle of March. The preparations were simple indeed - a
few benches, a table spread with a white cloth, on which were displayed the bread and
wine, that were to become to these disciples the memorials of Christ’s death, and the
token and seal of their interest in its blessings. Guerin took his seat at the head of the
table, and began the service. At that moment the sun, rising over the Alps, a his first
rays upon the little company, an outward emblem of the real though spiritual presence
of that Saviour of whom it was foretold “His coming like the morn shall be,
Like morning songs his voice.”[2]
This seemed to them an auspicious token.[3] The growing numbers and zeal of the
disciples again drew upon them the anger of the priests, and Guerin had to withdraw
and follow Froment into exile at Yvonand.[4] Geneva, like a ship labouring in a
tempestuous sea, was casting out one Protestant labourer after another, but it could
not cast out the Gospel.
Bern next appeared upon the stage, and demanded that its ally Geneva should grant
liberty to the preaching of the Gospel in it.[5] The friends of the duke and of Rome the Mamelukes, as they were called - saw that matters had come to a crisis. They must
extirpate Lutheranism from Geneva, otherwise they should never be at rest; but
Lutheranism they could hope to extirpate not otherwise than by extirpating all the
Lutherans. The council hesitated and procrastinated, for the majority of its members
were still Roman Catholic; but the canons, priests, and chief partisans of Romanism
neither hesitated nor procrastinated. They met in the Vicar-General’s council-hall
(Thursday, 27th May, 1533); they came armed to the teeth, and the issue of their
deliberations, which were conducted by torch-light, was to kill all the Protestants in
Geneva without one exception.[6] The conspirators, raising their hands, bound
themselves by a solemn oath.[7] They now dispersed for a brief repose, for the plot
was to be executed on the day following.
The morrow came, and the conspirators assembled in the cathedral, to the number of
700. [8] The first to enter was Canon Wernli. He came clad in armour. He was as
devoted a Romanist as he was a redoubtable warrior. He was a Samson for strength,
and could wield his battle-axe as he might fling about his breviary. In waging war
with the hydra of heresy which had broken into the Roman Catholic fold of Geneva
he would strike once, and would not strike a second time. This zealous priest and
29
valiant soldier was the real captain of the band, which was ostensibly led by Syndic
Baud, in his “great hat and plume of feathers.”
Having marshalled in front of the high altar of St. Peter’s, this troop, which included
300 armed priests, put itself in motion. With banners displayed, crosses uplifted, axes
and swords brandished, while the great bell of the cathedral sent forth its startling and
ominous peals, it marched down the street of the Perron to the Molard, and drew up in
battle array. Various armed detachments continued to arrive from other quarters, and
their junction ultimately swelled the Roman Catholic host to about 2,500. They felt
sure of victory. Here they stood, their cannons and arquebuses loaded, awaiting the
word for action: and chafing at those little hindrances which ever and anon occurred
to keep them back from battle, as chafes the war-horse against the bit that curbs his
fiery impatience to plunge into the fight.[9]
This army, drawn up in order of battle in the Molard, received a singular
reinforcement. The wives and mothers of the Romanists appeared on the scene of
action, their aprons filled with stones, by their side their little children of from twelve
to fourteen, whom they had brought to take part in this holy war and into whose hands
they had put such weapons as they were able to wield. So great was the zeal of these
Amazons against heresy! Meanwhile, what were the Protestants doing or thinking? At
the first alarm they assembled in the house of Baudichon de la Maisonneuve, one of
the most courageous of their leaders. His mansion was situated on the left bank of the
Rhone, some 400 paces from the Molard. The converts felt how terrible was the crisis,
but their hearts were fixed, trusting on him who holds the tempests and whirlwinds in
his hands. He had but to speak, and that storm would dispel as suddenly as it had
gathered. The plan of the Romanists was to march to Baudichon’s house, set fire to it,
and massacre the heretics one by one as they escaped from the flames. The proposal
of burning them came to the ears of the Protestants; their numbers had now
considerably increased; all were well armed and of good courage; they resolved to
march out and stand for their lives. Descending into the street, they drew up five deep
in presence of the enemy.
There was deep stillness. It would be broken the next moment by the shock of
murderous battle. The cannons and arquebuses were loaded; the halberds grasped; the
swords unsheathed; and stones and other missiles were ready to be poured in to
complete the work of death. But it pleased the Great Disposer to stay the tempest
when it seemed on the very point of bursting.
There chanced at that time to be seven Friburg merchants sojourning in Geneva.[10]
Touched by the lamentable spectacle of the citizens in arms to shed one another’s
blood, they came forward at the critical moment to mediate. “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Going first to the Roman Catholics and then to the Reformed, they
represented to the former how foolish it was to shed their blood “to satisfy the
appetite of their priests,”[11] and pointed out to the latter how tremendous were the
odds that stood arrayed against them. With much ado they succeeded in calming the
passions of both parties. The priests, however, of whom 160 were in arms, refused to
lend an ear to these pacific counsels. But finding that if they persisted they should
have to fight it out by themselves, they at last came to terms.[12] The insane fury of
the inhabitants having now given place to the natural affections, tears of joy
welcomed fathers and husbands as at night they stepped across the thresholds of their
30
homes. Terms of pacification were afterwards drawn up which left the balance
inclining somewhat in favour of liberty of conscience. [13]
But soon again another storm darkened over that city within which two mighty
principles were contending. The magistrates might issue edicts, the leaders of the two
parties might sign pacifications, but settled peace there could be none for Geneva till
the Gospel should have established its sway in the hearts of a majority of its citizens.
On the 4th May, just five weeks after the affair we have narrated, another tumult
broke out. Its instigator was the same bellicose ecclesiastic who figured so
prominently on the 28th March - Canon Wernli. “This good champion of the faith,” as
Sister Jeanne, who kept a journal of these occurrences, calls him, had that morning
celebrated, with unusual pomp, the Feast of “The Holy Winding-sheet,” in St. Peter’s.
“Taking off his sacerdotal robes, he put on his breast-plate and cuishes, belted his
sword to his side, seized his heavy halberd,”[14] and issued forth to do battle for the
Church. Followed by a party of priests to whose haalds the arquebus came quite as
readily as the breviary, Wernli strode down the Perton to his old battle-field, the
Molard By this time night had fallen; alarming rumours were propagated through the
city, and to add to the terror of the inhabitants, the tocsin began to ring out its
thundering peals. Many on both sides, Roman Catholics and Reformers, mostly
armed, rushed into the street. There Canon Wernli, unable to distinguish friend from
foe in the darkness, was shouting out to his assailants to come on; but as no one
answered the challenge, he fell to dealing blows right and left among the crowd. Some
one slipped behind him, and espying an opening in his iron coat, thrust his poignard
into his body. The shouts ceased, the tumult gradually subsided, the night passed, and
when the morning broke Canon Wernli was found lying in his armour, on the
doorsteps of one of the houses, stark dead.[15]
If the death of this Papal champion lessened the dangers of the Reformed within the
city, it multiplied their enemies without. Wernli belonged to a powerful family of the
Popish Canton of Friburg, and ambassadors from that State now appeared at Geneva
demanding the punishment of all concerned in the canon’s death - that is, of all the
Reformed. The Reformation seemed about to be sacrificed on the tomb of Wernli.
Protestant Bern instantly stepped forward in its defence. Bern proved itself the more
powerful. Its ambassadors induced the syndics and council, as the only escape from
the chaos that encompassed them, to proclaim liberty to all to abide by the mass, or to
follow Protestantism, as their conscience might dictate.[16] This decree, which
advanced the landmarks of liberty theoretically, but hardly as yet practically, brought
matters to a head in Geneva.
For some time many eyes had been watching from abroad the struggle going on in
this little town on the shores of the Leman. The extraordinary bravery and energy of
its citizens had invested it with a charm that riveted upon it the eye of both friend and
foe, and inspired them with the presentiment that it had a great part to play in the new
times that were opening. It caused many all hour of anxious thought to Clement VII.
in the Vatican. Charles V. could not but wonder that, while so many great kingdoms
owned his sway, this little city resisted his will. He had written to these haughty
burghers peremptorily commanding them to forsake the evil paths of heresy. They
had gone their own way notwithstanding.
Strong measures must be taken with this rebellious town. Its prince-bishop, Pierre de
la Baume, was absent from Geneva, and had been so for some while. The free
31
manners of the citizens did not suit him, and he took up his abode at Arbois, on the
other side of the Jura, in a quiet neighbourhood, where the wine was good. The
prince-bishop cared for his Church, of course, but he cared also for his dinner; but
Geneva was on the point of being lost; and the Pope, at the risk of spoiling the
bishop’s digestion, ordered him, under pain of excommunication, to return thither,
and try his hand at reducing to their obedience his mutinous subjects. Pierre de la
Baume had but little heart for the task, but it was enjoined upon him under a threat
which he trembled to incur, and so, provided with an armed escort, he returned (1st
July, 1533) to Geneva.
He but helped to ruin the cause he had come to uphold, he would give Lutheranism,
not an open execution, but a secret burial. Accordingly, inviting the chiefs of the
Protestant movement to his palace, no sooner had they entered it than the bishop
closed the doors, threw his guests into irons, and proceeded to dispose of them by
consigning one to this dungeon, and another to that. In this summary proceeding of
their bishop the council saw a flagrant violation of the franchises of Geneva. It was
the attack on liberty, not religion - for three of the four syndics were still Roman
Catholic - that awakened their indignation. The senators produced their ancient
charter, which the bishop had sworn to observe, and claimed the constitutional right,
in which it vested them, of trying all inculpated citizens. The bishop found himself
caught in the trap he had so cunningly set for others. If he should open his dungeons,
he would confess to having sustained a most humiliating defeat; if he should retain his
prisoners in bonds, he would draw upon his head one of those popular tempests of
which he was so greatly afraid. Choosing the former as the less formidable
alternative, he gave up his prisoners to their lawful judges.
But even this did not restore the bishop’s tranquillity. His guilty imagination was
continually conjuring up tumults and assassinations; and, fleeing when no man
pursued, he secretly quitted Geneva, just fourteen days after he had entered it.[17] He
left the cause of Rome in a worse position than he had found it, and the Pope saw that
he had better have left the craven bishop to enjoy his quiet and his wine at Arbois.
When the shepherd of the flock had fled, what so likely to happen as that the “wolf”
would return? The “wolf” did return. Froment, with a companion by his side,
Alexander Canus, reappeared upon the scene which the bishop had been in such haste
to quit. These evangelists preached in private houses, and when these no longer
sufficed for the crowds that assembled, they proclaimed the “good news” in the
streets. The bishop, who learned what was going on, fulminated a missive from his
quiet asylum, in the hope of driving the destroyer out of the fold he had deserted.
“Why,” said the Genevans, “did he not remain and keep the door closed?” The priests
complained to the council, laying the bishop’s letter upon the table. Their
remonstrance only served to show that the tide was rising. “Preach the Gospel,”
answered the council, “and say nothing that can not be proved by Holy Scripture.”
These words, which are still to be read in the city registers, made Protestantism a
religio licita (a tolerated faith) in Geneva.[18] The bishop, in his own way, threw oil
upon the fire by a second and more energetic letter, forbidding the preaching in
Geneva, secretly or publicly, of “the holy page,” of “the holy Gospel.” [19] Further,
Furbity, a frothy and abusive preacher of the Dominican order, was brought to oppose
the Reformed. The violence of his harangues evoked a popular tumult, and the waters
of liberty retreating for a moment from the limits Which they had reached, Froment
and Canus had to retire from Geneva.
32
But speedily the tide turned, this time to overpass a long way its furthest limits
hitherto. On the 21st December, 1533, Farel entered the gates of Geneva, not again to
leave it till the Reformation had been consummated in it. The Roman Catholics felt
that a life-and-death struggle had commenced.
The citizens assembled to the sermons of Farel with helmets on their heads, and
arquebuses and halberds in their hands. The priests, divining the true source of the
movement, published from all the pulpits on the 1st of January, 1534, an order
commanding all copies of the Bible, whether in French or in German, to be
burned.[20] For three days and nights the city was under arms; the one party arming
to defend, the other to expel the Bible. Froment arrived to the help of Farel. There
came yet another - Viret, who joined them in a few weeks. Farel, Viret, Froment - the
three most powerful preachers in the French tongue - are now in Geneva.
These three are an army. Their weapon is the Word of God. Clad in the panoply of
light, and wielding the sword of the Spirit, these three warriors will do more to batter
down the stronghold of Rome than all that the nine hundred priests in Geneva can do
to uphold it. The knell of the Papacy has sounded in this city; low responsive wailings
begin to be heard along the foot of the Alps and the crest of the Jura, mourning the
approaching fall of an ancient system. The echoes travel to France, to England, and to
Germany, and wherever they come the friends of the Gospel and of liberty look up,
while the adherents of Rome hang their heads, weighed down by the presentiment of a
terrible disaster about to befall their cause.
33
CHAPTER 7
HEROISM OF GENEVA
Geneva had much to dare and to endure during the year and a half that was yet to
elapse before its struggles should be crowned with victory. Three powerful parties the prince-bishop, the Duke of Savoy, and their Excellencies of Friburg - jointly
conspired against the liberties of the brave little town.[1] The bishop secretly
appointed a lieutenant-general to govern in his name, investing him with all the
powers of the State; the duke sent blank warrants to be filled in with the names of
those whom it might be necessary to apprehend and execute, and the Lords of Friburg
were to cooperate with the Mamelukes within the city. All had been excellently
planned; but the blow which the bishop meditated against the State of Geneva fell
upon himself and his accomplices. The plot was discovered; the agents who were to
have executed it suffered the doom of traitors; the bishop, caught plotting, became
nearly as odious to the Roman Catholics as he already was to the Protestants; and the
popular reaction which ensued filled the curule chairs, at next election, with the
friends of the Reform.
The Reformers, now numerous, and taunted sometimes with worshipping in holes and
corners, resolved no longer to submit to the stigma of being obliged to celebrate their
worship in private houses. They said to the magistrates, “Give us one of the churches
of the city.” The Council, wishing to hold the balance even between them and the
Roman Catholics, excused themselves by saying that this was a matter that lay outside
their jurisdiction; but, added they, “you are strong, and if you are pleased to take one
of the churches of your own accord, we can not prevent you.”
The converts did not delay to act upon the hint. The brave Baudichon de la
Maisonneuve marching at their head, they proceeded to the Convent of the Rive and
appropriated for their use the “Grand Auditory,” or cloister,[2] which might contain
from four to five thousand persons. They rang the bells; the report ran that Farel was
to preach; and crowds from every part of the city came streaming to the Rive. The
monks could only stare. Rising up in his ordinary dress, Farel preached to the
overflowing congregation. That was a day much to be remembered in Geneva. It
needs neither many nor learned words to proclaim the Gospel. It is a message from
the throne of heaven to the guilty children of earth, to this effect, that God, having
sent his Son to suffer in their room, offers them a free pardon.
The Genevans were amazed to find that the Gospel was so simple a matter, and could
be so soon told. They had been taught from their cradle that it needed gorgeous
cathedrals, blazing tapers, splendidly apparelled priests, chants, and incense to set it
forth, and that wanting mystic rites it refused to impart its efficacy to the worshipper;
now they found that one attired in a plain dress, and in a single plain sentence, could
declare it all. But that little sentence they found was a ray that revealed to them a
whole world of glory. The chant of the priest had entered the ear only, Farel’s words
sunk into the heart: the taper had but flashed its light on the eye, the Gospel shed its
glory on the soul. A moral phenomenon was now accomplished before this people,
analogous to the natural one which often takes place in this same region. So long as
the mists and clouds veil the Alps, these mountains, even to the men living at their
feet, are as if they did not exist.
34
But let the clouds lift, or let the breeze make an opening in the mist, and lo! a world of
Alpine grandeurs is suddenly revealed to the eye of the spectator. A moment ago there
hung before him a curtain of dull vapour; now there is seen a glorious array of
mountains, with their gorges, rocks, and pine forests, their snows and flashing
pinnacles. As near, yet as unseen, were the evangelical glories of the spiritual world to
the Genevans. These glories were completely hidden by the black cloud of ignorance
and superstition that hung between them and the Bible. But the moment that cloud
began to be parted by the preaching of the Gospel and the breath of the Spirit, a new
world was disclosed, a world of truth. It stood out, distinct, palpable, complete, in an
affluence of spiritual glory, and a fullness of moral power, which made the Genevans
wonder what blinding influence it was that had hidden from their eye what was all the
time so near, and yet so entirely unseen.
The Gospel had entered Geneva. The city was taken. How much the Reformation had
gained, and how much Rome had lost, in the conquest of that little town, future years
were to enable men fully to understand. But the Protestants of Geneva had many
efforts and sacrifices yet to undergo if they would retain the victory which had in
reality been won.
Geneva was far too important a post for the Romanists to let it slip without another
great effort. This was resolved upon. In the middle of May the priests of the
surrounding districts organised a great procession of pilgrims, who knew how to
handle other things than their rosaries. The pious troop appeared at the gates of
Geneva, duly furnished with banners, crosses, and relics; but the citizens, recollecting
the story of the Trojan horse, and fearing that if the pilgrims entered their devotions
might take a militant turn, and the war-cry be raised for the psalm, refused to admit
the devout host. They could pray outside the walls. So this danger passed away.
The next army that marched to assail the little town, where the light of the Gospel was
burning more brightly every day, came not in the guise of pilgrims, but of soldiers.
The bishop had formed a new plot. The Romanist Lords of Vaud and Savoy, at the
instigation of the bishop and the duke, had arranged a hunting party for the last day of
July, 1534, the real game which the armed sportsmen meant to run down being the
Genevan Lutheran. The Papists within the city were to act in concert with those
without. Some 300 armed foreigners had been secretly introduced into the town; the
keeper of the artillery had been bribed; the midnight signals agreed upon; and the
bishop, dividing the prey before he had caught it, had confiscated in favour of his
followers the goods of the Genevan heretics. In short, everything had been done to
insure success.
The night came; the peasants of the surrounding country, having armed themselves,
began to move on Geneva, some by land, others by water. The Bailiff of Chablais and
the Baron de Rollo alone led 8,000 men. The Papists in the city had armed secretly,
and were assembling in one another’s houses.[3] The citizens, all save the
accomplices of the bishop, were ignorant of the plot, and many of them had already
gone to rest as usual. All was progressing as the invaders wished. But that Providence
which had been ploughing this field for more than twenty years, was not to abandon it
to the enemy at the very moment when the seed which had been sown in it was
shooting up, and the harvest at hand. A friend of the Gospel, Jacques Maubuisson,[4]
from Dauphine, solicited an interview with the premier syndic at an early hour of the
35
evening. He was admitted, and startled the magistrate by telling him that the city was
surrounded with armed men. Instantly the citizens were aroused and got under arms.
The host outside the walls were meanwhile straining their eyes to catch through the
darkness the first gleam of the torches, which were to be waved on the tops of the
houses of their friends as the signal to begin the assault. All suddenly a brilliant light
shone forth from the summit of the steeple of St. Peter’s. That was the place, the
invaders knew, where the city-watch were usually stationed. It was plain the plot had
been discovered. “We are betrayed! we are betrayed!” they exclaimed; “we shall
never enter Geneva!”[5] Fiercer and yet fiercer, as it seemed to the eyes of the
Savoyards, glared that beacon-light. Panic seized their ranks, and when the morning
broke the citizens of Geneva beheld from their steeples and ramparts the armies of the
invaders in full retreat. By the time the sun rose the last foe had disappeared. As a
dream, short but terrible, so did the events of that night appear to the Genevans.[6]
The miscarriage of the plot was followed by an exodus of Romanists from the city.
Many of the Mamelukes, as they were termed, fled, and thus the priests were left
without flocks, the churches without worshippers, and the images without votaries.
The Protestants were more than ever masters of the situation. In the final struggles of
the Papacy in Geneva we behold what has since been repeated in our own day, on the
wider arena of Europe, that every attempt to raise it up has only helped to cast it
down.
Yet another effort - that is, as things were going with the Papacy, another plunge, the
last and the deepest. The duke and the bishop were but the more enraged by their
repeated discomfitures. They resolved that they would extinguish Lutheranism, or
sweep the little town in which it had entrenched itself from off its rock, and make it,
like old Tyre, a place for the spreading of nets by the shores of its lake. Considering
the resources which the duke had at his command, neither he nor any one else could
see how he should not be able to do his pleasure upon the audacious little city.
Geneva had an enemy, it may be said, in every man outside her walls. The castles that
hemmed her in on all sides were filled with armed men ready to march at the first
summons. Before beginning the war which was to make the rebellious town put its
haughty neck under his feet, Duke Charles III. sent his ultimatum to the citizens. They
must send away their preachers - Farel, Viret, and Froment; they must take back their
bishop, and return within the bosom of their holy mother the Church. On these terms
the duke, good and kind man, would give them his forgiveness.[7] The Genevans
made answer that sooner than do this they would bury themselves beneath the ruins of
their city. Even their good ally, Bern, despairing of their success, or else gained by the
flatteries of the duke, counselled the Genevans to submit. A Diet of the Swiss cantons
met at Lucerne in January, 1535, to determine on the matter. They had no other advice
to give Geneva than submission.[8] This was unspeakably disappointing, but worse
was behind. The great Emperor Charles V. came forward and announced that he cast
his sword into the scale of the duke.
The cause of Geneva, already desperate, was now hopeless apparently. Could this
little town of only 12,000 inhabitants resist the Empire? Could the Genevans stand
alone against the world? All help has failed them on earth; nevertheless, their
resolution is as inflexible as ever. Geneva shall be a sanctuary of the Protestant faith
and a citadel of liberty, or its sons will “set fire to its four corners,” and make it their
own funeral pile.
36
It was now that a terrible resolution was taken by its heroic citizens. Outside the walls
of Geneva were four large suburbs, with a population of 6,200 souls.[9] In fact, there
were two cities, one within and another without the walls, and the latter, it was
obvious, would afford cover to the advancing foe, and prevent the free play upon him
of the cannon on the ramparts. On the 23rd of August, 1534, the Council of Two
Hundred resolved to demolish these suburbs, and clear the ground all round the
city.[10] This was to sacrifice one half of Geneva to save the other half. The stern
decree was carried out, although not without many heavy sighs and bitter tears. Rich
and poor pulled down their homes with their own hands; although many of the latter
knew not where they were to lay their heads at night. Villa and hovel shared an equal
fate; convents and temples of a venerable antiquity were razed to the ground. The
monastery of St. Victor, of which Bonnivard was prior, and which was the oldest
edifice in Geneva, having been founded in the beginning of the sixth century, fell by
the same sentence, and mingled its ruins with those of fabrics that were but of
yesterday. The pleasant gardens, the sparkling fountains, and the overshadowing trees
which had graced so many of the dwellings were all swept away. By the middle of
January, 1535, the work of demolition was finished; and now a silent and devastated
zone begirt the city.[11]
It was not enough to pull down, the citizens had to build up. The stones of the
overturned edifices were taken to repair and strengthen the fortifications. Amid the
drifts of winter the men might be seen building on the walls, and the women carrying
earth and stones. The bells of the demolished churches and convents were melted and
cast into cannon.
Though the idols were pulled down, the Roman Catholics were protected in their
worship.[12] The Genevans would not stain the glory of the prodigious sacrifices they
were making for their own religious liberty by invading that of others. A little band of
armed Protestants kept watch at the church door while the few canons who remained
in the city sang their matins on Christmas morning.[13]All was now ready, and the
heroic inhabitants, their eyes lifted up to heaven, awaited the hour when the foe
should gather round them on all sides, and deliver his assault. Let him strike. Their
resolution was immovable. Geneva must be the temple that would enshrine their
religion and their liberties, or the mausoleum that would contain their ashes.
37
CHAPTER 8
ROME FALLS AND GENEVA RISES
Much, we may say everything, depended on the battle now raging around the little
town on the shores of the Leman Lake. Unless Geneva were won to Protestantism, the
victories already gained by the Reformation would be but of small account; many of
them would melt away and be lost. In Germany the spiritual principle of the
Reformation was becoming overshadowed by the political. The princes, with their
swords, were putting themselves in the van; and the Reformers, with the Bible, were
falling into the rear. This was to reverse the right order. It was clear that the German
Reformation had passed its prime. It was necessary to seek a new foothold for
Protestantism - some spot where the SPIRITUAL, planted anew, might unfold itself,
segregated from the political; and where, unfettered and unaided by the temporal
power, it would, in virtue of its own heavenly might, continue to wax in stature and
spreading wide its boughs cover the nations with its grateful shadow, and solace them
with its precious fruits. It was not necessary to select, as its seat, a great empire or a
renowned capital; a little town such as this at the foot of the Alps would serve the
purpose better than a more conspicuous and more expansive stage. The territory
selected must be separated from the other countries of Christendom, Popish and
Reformed, and yet it must be near to them; and not near only, but in the midst of
them. Moreover, it must in some way be protected from external violence while
working out its great problem. If around it there rises no massy bulwark frowning
defiance on the foe; if there musters at its gates no powerful army to do battle with the
invader; if the great mountains are too remote to serve as walls and ramparts to it; if
earthly defence it has none, all the more evident will it be that it owes its safety to an
Invisible Arm that is stretched out in its behalf, and that it is environed by ramparts
which the foe is unable to see, and equally unable to scale.
Here will stand the true “Threshold of the Apostles.” The doors of this shrine will
open to the holy only; it will be visited by enlightened and believing hearts from
every land; and its highways will be trodden and its portals thronged, not by dissolute
and superstitious crowds, but by the confessors and exiles of Christ. Here Christianity,
laid in its grave at Rome a thousand years before, with crowned Pontiffs and lordly
hierarchs keeping watch around its corpse, shall have its resurrection. Rising from the
tomb to die no more, it will attest, by the order, the liberty, the intelligence, and the
virtue with which it will glorify its seat, that it has lost none of its power during its
long entombment, but that, on the contrary, it returns with invigorated force for the
execution of its glorious mission, which is that of making all things new. Will such a
spot be found in Geneva? Shall the bishop and the duke be chased from it, that it may
be given to the men in whom are found the embodiment of the highest ideal,
intellectual and spiritual, of Protestantism? This is the question which is to receive its
answer from the conflict now waging on the shores of the Leman. The issue of that
conflict is at hand.
We left Geneva reduced to the last extremity. Roman Catholic Friburg had terminated
its alliance with the Lutheran town, after a friendship of eight years. The reflection of
Scultetus on the dissolution of the treaty between the two States is striking and
suggestive. “The love of liberty,” says he, “had united the two towns in the closest
bonds; but liberty opened the door for religion, and its influence separated chief
friends! But what is most remarkable is, that the alliance lasted so long as the
38
independence of Geneva required it, and ceased when its dissolution helped to
promote the Reformation.
While its allies are drawing off from the little town on the one side, its enemies are
approaching it on the other. Every day they are redoubling their efforts to take it, and
it would seem as if, left to fight its great battle alone, its fall were inevitable.
The duke is raising army after army to force an entrance into it. The bishop is fighting
against it with both spiritual and temporal arms. Pierre de la Baume had fulminated
the greater excommunication against it, and published it in all the churches and
convents of the neighbouring provinces.[1]
The Pope had added his heavier anathema; and now, in the eyes of the inhabitants of
the towns and villages around, Geneva was a “dwelling of devils,” and all were ready
to assail, burn, or lay waste a place which the bishop and the Pontiff had cursed. To
crown the misfortunes of the Genevans, the emperor, unsheathing his great sword and
holding it over their heads, demanded that they should open their gates and receive
back their bishop. What was to be done? Shall they crouch down under the old yoke?
They had obtained a glimpse of a new world, and their former slavery appeared more
horrible than ever. To go back to it was the most dreadful issue which their
imaginations could picture. Come victory and life, or come defeat and death, they
could not go back; they must and would advance with firm step in the path on which
they had entered.
The same cause which had repelled the Popish Friburg from Geneva, as narrated
above, will draw the Protestant Bern closer to its side; so one would think. Yet no! the
threatening attitude of the Popish powers, and its own complications, made Bern shy
of giving open aid to Geneva in its fight for liberty and the Reformed faith.[2] Some
Bernese ambassadors, won by the gracious manners of the duke, and forgetting in the
lighter matters of courtesy the greater matters of liberty, went to Geneva, and
counselled the citizens to send away their preachers, and take back their bishop.
Astounded at. such a proposal from the men of Bern, the Council of Geneva replied,
“You ask us to abandon our liberties and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” At its sorest
need the little State was forsaken of every earthly aid. But this only serves to show
how rapidly the tide of devotion to the Reformed faith was rising within its walls. It
was its religion that saved it. But for it, Geneva never would have won its liberty.
“We are resolved,” said the Council to the Bernese ambassadors, “to sacrifice our
property, our honours, our very children, and our own lives for the Word of God. Tell
the duke we will rather with our own hands set fire to the four corners of our city,
than part with the Gospel.”
Meanwhile, the number of the Reformed within the city was daily increasing, partly
from conversions from Popery, and partly from the numerous disciples chased from
France by the storms of persecution, and now daily arriving at the gates of Geneva.
On the other hand, those Romanists who disliked or feared to dwell in a place cursed
by the Church, and hourly sinking deeper in the gulf of heresy, quitted Geneva in
considerable numbers. Thus the proportion between the two parties was growing
every day more unequal, and the quiet of the city more assured.
39
The bishop, moreover, by way of visiting the Protestants with a special mark of his
displeasure, did them a signal favour. He removed his episcopal council and his
judicial court from Geneva to Gex, in the dominions of the Duke of Savoy.[3]
Thereupon the Council of Geneva met and resolved, “That, as the bishop had
abandoned the city to unite himself with its most deadly foe, and had undertaken
divers enterprises against it, even to the length of levying war, they could no longer
regard him as the pastor of the people.” They declared the see vacant.[4] Before
taking this step, however, they invited the canons to elect a new bishop; this the
canons declined to do. They next lodged an appeal at Rome; but the Pope gave them
no answer. This observance of forms greatly strengthened the legal position of the
Council. The Vatican would not interfere, the canons would neither elect a new
bishop nor bring back the old one; the city was without a ruler, and the Council was
by no means sorry to step into the vacant office. To the last the Council followed
rather than preceded the people and the preachers The political situation, so full of
dangers, made it imperative that they should weigh every step, and especially that
they should be satisfied that the Reformation had established itself in the hearts of the
people before establishing it by edict.
If the number of malcontents who were leaving the city lessened the difficulties
within the walls, it greatly increased the dangers without. The Castle of Peney, on the
precipitous banks of the Rhone, about two leagues from Geneva, belonged to the
bishop. It was a strong and roomy place, and now it swarmed with men breathing
vengeance against the city they had left. From this nest of brigands there issued every
day ferocious bands, who laid waste the country around Geneva, cut off the supplies
coming to its markets, waylaid its citizens, and, carrying them to their stronghold,
tortured them in its dungeons, and then beheaded or otherwise dispatched them. A
former Knight of Malta, Peter Goudet, a Frenchman, who, having embraced
Protestantism, had found refuge in Geneva, was entrapped by these bandits, carried to
their den, and, after a mock trial, burned alive.[5] Nor were these ruffians alone in
their barbarities and cruelties. The gentry of Savoy and of the Pays de Vaud,
following their worshipful example, armed their retainers, and, scouring the country
around, showed that they equalled in zeal, by equalling in atrocity, the free-booters of
Peney.[6]
A yet darker crime stains the attempt to uphold the Roman Catholic cause in Geneva.
The sword of the duke had failed: so had the excommunication of the bishop,
although backed by that of the Pope. Other means must be thought of. A plot was laid
to cut off Farel, Viret, and Froment, all three at once, by poison. The circumstance
that they lodged together in the same house, that of Claude Bernard, an intelligent and
zealous friend of the Gospel, favoured the design. A woman, a native of Bresse, was
suborned to leave Lyons, on pretence of religion, and come to Geneva. She entered
the service of Bernard, with whom the preachers lived. She began, it is said, by
poisoning her mistress. A few days thereafter she mixed poison with the soup which
had been prepared for the ministers’ dinner. Happily only one of them partook of the
broth. Farel was indisposed, and did not dine that day, Froment made his repast on
some other dish, and Viret alone ate of the poisoned food. He was immediately seized
with illness, and was at the point of death. He recovered, but the debilitating effects of
the poison remained with him to the end of his days. The wretched woman confessed
the crime, but accused a canon and a priest of having instigated her to it. The two
40
ecclesiastics were permitted to clear themselves by oath, but the woman was
condemned to death on the 14th April, and executed.[7]
This wickedness, which was meant to extinguish the movement, was closely
connected with its final triumph. To guard against any second attempt at poison, the
three preachers had apartments assigned them by the Council in the Franciscan
Convent de Rive. The result of the Reformers being lodged there was the conversion
of nearly all the brethren of the convent, and in particular of James Bernard, a citizen
of good family, and brother of Claude mentioned above. The latter had been one of
the more ardent champions of Popery in Geneva, and, as his change of mind was now
complete, he thought it would be well, at this crisis, to hold a public disputation on
religion, similar to those which had taken place elsewhere with such good results. His
design was approved by the Reformers to whom he had communicated it. It was
further sanctioned by the Council.
Accordingly Bernard offered to maintain the following propositions against all who
chose publicly to impugn them:[8] 1st. That we are to seek justification in Jesus Christ alone, and not in our good works.
2nd. That we are to offer our worship to God only, and that to adore the saints and
images is idolatry.
3rd. That the Church is to be governed by the Word of God alone, and that human
traditions and the constitutions of the Church, which ought rather to be styled Roman
or Papal ordinances, are not only vain, but pernicious.
4th. That Christ’s oblation is the sole and sufficient satisfaction for sin, and that the
sacrifice of the mass and prayers to the saints are contrary to the Word of God, and
avail nothing for salvation.
5th. That Jesus Christ is the one and only Mediator between God and man.[9]
It was the foundations of the two faiths that were to be publicly put on their trial.
The Town Council made the arrangements for the discussion. They had the theses
printed and published. Copies of them were affixed to the doors of the churches of the
city, and of all the churches of the neighbourhood. They were, moreover, posted up in
the towns of Savoy that were under the jurisdiction of Bern, and messengers were
dispatched to placard them in the distant cities of Grenoble and Lyons. Men of
learning, generally, whether lay or clerical, were invited; all were assured of safety of
person and liberty of speech; eight members of Council were appointed to preside;
and four secretaries were to take down all that was said on both sides.
The disputation opened on the 30th of May in the grand hall of the Convent de Rive.
It continued four weeks without intermission, and ended on the 24th of June. Bernard
himself took the lead, assisted by Farel and Viret. The two opposing champions were
Peter Careli, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and John Chapuis, a Dominican of Geneva.
These days of combat were days of joy to the friends of the Gospel. Each day some
old idol was dethroned. The ancient cloud was lifting, and as fold after fold of the
41
murky vapour rolled away, Truth came forth in her splendour, and showed herself to
eyes from which she had long been hidden.
“As fair Aurora, in her purple pall,
Out of the east the dawning day doth call,
So forth she comes: her brightness broad doth blaze.
The heaps of people, thronging in the hall,
Do ride each other, upon her to gaze:
Her glorious glittering light doth all men’s eyes amaze.”[10]
In the end, both Caroli and Chapuis acknowledged themselves vanquished, and
declared, in presence of the vast assembly, their conversion to the Reformed faith.[11]
The verdict of the public on the disputation was not doubtful, but Farel and some of
the leading citizens wished the Council also to pronounce its judgment;. Three of its
four members were now on the Protestant side; nevertheless, it would give no
decision. Its policy, for the present, was to curb rather than encourage the popular
zeal. It visited with frowns and sometimes with fines the demolition of the images.
When asked to give the Magdalene and St. Peter’s for the use of the preachers, whose
congregations daily increased, its reply was, “Not yet.” The Council had not lost sight
of the duke and the emperor in the distance, and they knew that the duke and the
emperor had not lost sight of them. Meanwhile, to speed on the movement, there
came some startling revelations of the frauds by which the falling superstition had
been upheld.
It is a doctrine of the Church of Rome that infants dying unbaptised are consigned to
limbo, a sort of faubourg of hell. To redeem such wretched babes from so dreary an
abode, what would not their unhappy mothers be willing to give! But was such a thing
possible? Outside the gates stood the Church of Our Lady of Grace. To this Virgin
was ascribed, among other marvellous prerogatives, the power of resuscitating infants
for so long as would suffice for their receiving the Sacrament. The corpse was
brought to the statue of Our Lady, and being laid at its feet, its head would be seen to
move, or a feather placed on its mouth would be blown away. On this the monks, to
whom an offering had previously been made, would shout out, “A miracle! a
miracle!” and ring the great bell of the church, and salt, chrism, and holy water would
instantly be brought and the child baptised. The Council ordered an investigation into
the miracle, and the verdict returned was the plain one, that it was “a trick of the
priests.”[12] The syndics forbade all such miracles in time to come.
There came yet another edifying discovery. It was an immemorial belief at Geneva
that the bodies of St. Nazaire, St. Celsus, and St. Pantaleon reposed beneath the high
altar of St. Gervais. Indeed, the fact could not be doubted, for had not the worthy
saints been heard singing and talking together on Christmas Eve and similar
occasions? But in an evil hour for this belief the altar was overturned, and the too
curious eyes of Protestants peered beneath its foundation-stones. They found not
Nazaire and his two venerable companions; they saw, instead, a curious mechanism in
the rock, not unlike the pipes of an organ, with several vessels of water, so placed that
their contents could be forced through the narrow tubes, making a hollow sound, not
unlike the voices of men singing or conversing in the bowels of the earth. The
Genevans were hardly in circumstances to make merry; nevertheless, the idea that the
saints should amuse themselves below ground by playing upon musical glasses
42
seemed so very odd, that it raised a laugh among the citizens, in which, however, the
monks did not join.[13]
This little town on the shores of the Leman had the distinction of possessing the brain
of St. Peter, which lay usually upon the high altar. It was examined and pronounced to
be a piece of pumice-stone. Again the monks looked grave, while smiles mantled
every face around them. The spiritual treasury of the little town was further enriched
with the arm of St. Anthony. The living arm had done valorous deeds, but the dead
arm seemed to possess even greater power; but, alas! for the relic and for those who
had kissed and worshipped it, and especially those who had profited so largely by the
homage paid it, it was found, when taken from its shrine, to be not a human arm at all,
but part of a stag. Again there were curling lips and mocking eyes.[14] Nor did this
exhaust the list of discoveries.
Curious little creatures, with livid points of fire glowing on their bodies, would be
seen moving about, at “dewy eve,” in the churchyards or in the cathedral aisles. What
could they be? These, said the priests, are souls from purgatory. They have been
permitted to revisit “the pale glimpses of the moon” to excite in their behalf the
compassion of the living. Hasten with your alms, that your mothers, fathers, husbands
may not have to return to the torments from which they have just made their escape.
The appearance of these mysterious creatures was the unfailing signal of another
golden shower which was about to descend on the priests. But, said the Genevans,
before bestowing more masses, let us look a little more closely at these visitors. We
never saw anything that more nearly resembled crabs with candles attached to them
than these souls from purgatory. Ah, yes! the purgatory from which they have come,
we shrewdly suspect, is not the blazing furnace below the earth, but the cool lake
beside the city; we shall restore them to their former abode, said they, casting them
into the water. There came no more souls with flambeaux to solicit the charity of the
Genevans.[15]
43
CHAPTER 9
ESTABLISHMENT OF PROTESTANTISM IN GENEVA
There came discoveries of another kind to crown with confusion the falling system. In
the Convent of the Cordeliers de la Rive a tablet was discovered on which St., Francis
of Assisi, the patriarch of the order, was represented under the figure of a great vine,
with numerous boughs running out from it in the form of Cordeliers, and having
underneath the inscription, “John 15:1: I am the vine, ye are the branches.”[1] This
showed a faculty for exegesis of a very extraordinary kind. The schoolmen might
have relished it as ingenious: the Genevans, who had begun to love the simplicity of
the Scriptures, condemned it as blasphemous.
It was not a little curious that at that same hour, when the Papacy was tottering to its
fall in Geneva, another tablet, also highly suggestive, should have been drawn from
the darkness in the Convent of the Dominicans. It represented a monster, with seven
heads and ten horns, in the act of being delivered of a horrible brood of Popes,
cardinals, and monks, which were being dropped into a huge cauldron, round which
flames circled and devils danced. Underneath was a prophecy in Latin rhyme, to the
effect that the hour was approaching when God would destroy the power and glory of
Rome and cause its name to perish. The picture was in all likelihood made by Jacques
Jaqueri, of the city of Turin, in the year 1401. He is supposed to have been a
Waldensian, who probably had had to do penance in the Inquisition for this exercise
of his art, and hence the fact that the picture was found in one of the convents of the
Dominicans, the order to which, as is well known, this department of the Church’s
work had been assigned.[2]
The hour was now fully come. The enormities of the Genevan priesthood had first
awakened indignation against the Papacy; subsequent revelations of the cheats to
which the system had stooped to uphold itself, had intensified that indignation; but it
was the preaching of Farel and his companions that planted the Reformation - that is,
converted the movement from one of destruction to one of restitution. On the 10th of
August, 1535, the Council of Two Hundred assembled to take into consideration the
matter of religion. Farel, Viret, and many of the citizens appeared before it. With
characteristic eloquence Farel addressed the Council, urging it no longer to delay, but
to proclaim as the religion of Geneva that same system of truth which so great a
majority of the Genevans already professed. He offered, for himself and his
colleagues, to submit to death, provided the priests could show that in the public
disputation, or in their sermons, he and his brethren had advanced anything contrary
to the Word of God.[3]
After long discussion the Council saw fit to lay its commands on both parties. The
Protestants were forbidden to destroy any more images, and were considered as bound
to restore those they had already displaced, whenever the priests should prove from
Holy Scripture that images were worthy objects of religious veneration. The Roman
Catholics, on their part, were enjoined to cease from the celebration of mass until the
Council should otherwise ordain. So stood the matter on the 10th of August. The step
was a small one, but the gain remained with the Reformation.
Two days after, the Council summoned before them the Cordeliers, the Dominicans,
and the Augustines, and having read to them a summary of the disputation held in the
44
city a few days previously, they asked them what they had to say to it. They
answered, one after the other, that they had nothing to object. The Council next
offered that, provided they made good the truth of their dogmas and the lawfulness of
their worship from the Word of God, their Church should be re-established in its
former glory. They declined the challenge, and submitted themselves to the Council,
praying to be permitted to live as their ancestors in times past had lived.[4]
The same day after dinner three syndics and two councillors, by appointment of the
Senate, waited on the grand-vicar of the bishop, the canons, and the parochial cures.
Briefly recounting the religious conflicts which had disturbed the city these ten years
past, they made the same offer to them which they had made to the monks in the
morning. But the prospect of rendering Romanism once more supreme in Geneva,
could not tempt them to do battle for their faith; they had no desire, they said, to hear
any more sermons from Farel; nor, indeed, could they dispute on religions matters
without leave from their bishop. They craved only to be permitted to exercise their
religion without restraint. The deputation announced to them the order of Council that
they should cease to say mass, and then retired.[5]
From that day mass ceased to be said in the churches and convents, and on the 27th of
August a general edict was issued, enjoining public worship to be conducted
according to the rules of the Gospel, and prohibiting all “acts of Popish idolatry.”
From that day forward Farel and his two colleagues preached, dispensed the
Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, celebrated marriages, and performed
all other religious acts freely.[6] The monastery of La Rive was converted into a
public school, and the convent of St. Claire into an hospital. The goods of the Church,
and of the religious houses, due provision having been made for existing incumbents,
were applied to the maintenance of the Protestant clergy, of schools, and of the
poor.[7]
The priests, monks, and nuns were very courteously treated. It was entirely in their
own choice to remain within the city or to leave it. The nuns of St. Claire, whom
Sister Jussie’s narrative has made famous, chose to withdraw to Anneci. They had
been haunted by the terrible idea of being compelled to marry, and thought it better to
“flee temptation” than remain in Geneva. Some of the sisters had not been outside the
walls of their convent for thirty years. To them, every sight and sound of the country
was strange; and it is impossible to withhold a smile in perusing Ruchat’s account of
their journey, and thinking of the terrors into which the good sisters were thrown at
the sight of the sheep and oxen in the fields, which they mistook for lions and
bears.[8]
From the 27th of August, 1535, the Popish faith ceased to be the religion of Geneva.
But the victory, though great, did not terminate the war, or justify the Genevans in
thinking that they had placed their liberties on an impregnable basis. On the contrary,
never, apparently, had they been in greater danger than now, for the step of
proclaiming themselves Protestant had filled up their cup in the eyes of their enemies.
The duke, roused to fury by this daring affront on the part of a city that had scarcely a
soldier to defend it, and that was without an ally in Europe, resolved to make this
handful of burghers repent of their madness. He would concentrate all his power in
one terrible blow, and crush a heresy that was so full of insolence and rebellion in the
ruins of the city in which it had found a seat. He blockaded Geneva on the land side
by his army, and on the side of the lake by his galleys. The gates that would not open
45
to his soldiers must open to famine, and he would see how long these haughty
burghers would hold fast their heresy and rebellion when they had not bread to eat.
And, in sooth, the prospects of the little city seemed desperate. The blockade was so
strict that it was hardly possible to bring in any provisions, and no one could go or
come but at the risk of being waylaid and killed. The bare and blackened zone outside
the city walls, so recently a rich girdle of stately villa and flourishing garden, was but
too exact an emblem of its political nakedness, now entirely without allies. Even
Bern, in this, the hour of Geneva’s sorest need, stood afar off. Every day the stock of
provisions in the beleaguered city was growing less. The citizens could count the
hours when gaunt famine would sit at every board, and one by one they would drop
and die. Well, so be it! They would leave the duke to vanquish Geneva when, from a
city of patriots, it had become a city of corpses. This was the illustrious triumph they
would prepare for him. Their resolve was as unalterable as ever. Be it a nation or be it
an individual, every truly great and noble career must have its commencement in an
act of self-sacrifice. It was out of this dark night that the glorious day of Geneva
sprang.
The Genevans found a messenger expert enough to escape detection and carry tidings
to Bern. The powerful Bern, at ease as regarded its own safety, listened in philosophic
calmness to the tale of Geneva’s perils,[9] but after some days it thought right to
interfere so far in behalf of its former companion in the battles of liberty and religion
as to open negotiations with the duke. The duke was willing to receive any number of
protocols, provided only the Bernese did not send soldiers. While their Lordships of
Bern were negotiating, famine and the duke were steadily advancing upon the
doomed city. But now it happened that the Bernese were themselves touched, and
their eyes opened somewhat roughly to the duke’s treachery and the folly of longer
indulging in the pastime of negotiation. The Lord of Savoy had taken the Chatelain of
Muss, a titled freebooter, into his service. The Chatelain, with his band of
desperadoes, made an irruption into the districts of Orbe, Grandson, and Echelous,
which were the common property of Bern and Friburg, and spoiled them in the duke’s
name. Bern hesitated no longer. She declared war against the Duke of Savoy, thinking
it better to fight him at Geneva than wait till he had come nearer to her own gates.[10]
Having at length resolved to act, Bern, it must be confessed, did so with vigour. On
the 13th of January, 1536, the Council came to the resolution of declaring war. The
following day they sent notice of their determination to the Swiss cantons, praying
them to unite their arms with theirs in what, beyond question, was the common cause
of the Confederacy, the repulsion of a foreign tyranny. On the 16th they issued their
proclamation of war; on the 22nd their army of 6,000 began their march. They gave
its command to Jean Franqois Naeguli, who had served with honour in the wars in
Italy. On the 2nd of February the Bernese army arrived at the gates of Geneva.[11]
The joy their appearance caused and the welcome accorded them may be easily
imagined.
Meanwhile the dangers within and outside Geneva had thickened. Despite the
necessities of the citizens, certain rich men kept their granaries closed. This led to
disorders. On the 14th of January the Council assumed possession of these stores, and
opened them to the public, at the same time fixing the price at which the corn was to
be sold, and so too did they as regarded the wine and other necessaries. The dangers
outside were not so much in the control of the Council.
46
The Savoyard army had resolved to attempt scaling the walls, the same night, at three
points. The assault was made between nine and ten. One party advanced on the side of
St. Gervais, where the city was defended only by a palisade and ditch; the others
made their attempt on that of the Rive and St. Victor. The latter, having crossed the
ditch, were now at the foot of the wall with their ladders, but the Genevans, appearing
on the top, courageously repelled them, and forced them to retire. On the 16th of
January came the good news, by two heralds, that Bern had declared war in their
behalf, this re-animated the Genevans; though weakened by famine they made four
sorties on the besiegers. In one of these, 300 Genevans engaged double that number of
Savoyards. The duke’s soldiers were beaten. First the duke’s cavalry galloped off the
field, then the infantry lost courage and fled. Of the Savoyards 120 were slain and
four taken prisoners. The Genevans did not lose a man; one of their number only was
hurt by the falling of his horse, which was killed under him.[12]
This was only the beginning of disasters to the duke’s army. A few days thereafter,
the Bernese warriors, who had continued their march, despite that the five Popish
Cantons had by deputy commanded them to stop, appeared before Geneva. They
rested not more than a single day, when they set out in search of the enemy. The
Savoyard army was already in full retreat upon Chambery. The Bernese pushed on,
but the foe fled faster than they could pursue. And now came tidings that convinced
the men of Bern that the farther prosecution of the expedition was needless. Enemies
had started up on every side of the duke, and a whole Iliad of woes suddenly overtook
him. Among others, the King of France chose this moment to declare war against him.
Francis I. had many grudges to satisfy, but what mainly moved him at this time
against the duke was his desire to have a road to Milan and Italy. Accordingly, he
moved his army into Savoy, wrested from the duke Chambery, the cradle of his
house, chased him across the Alps, and, not permitting him to rest even at Turin, took
possession of his capital. Thinking to seize the little territory of Geneva, the duke had
lost his kingdoms of Savoy and Piedmont. he retired to Vercelli, where, after
seventeen years of humiliation and exile, he died.[13] How many tragedies are
wrapped up in the great tragedy of the sixteenth century!
The duke off the scene, the movement at Geneva now resumed its march. The edict of
the 27th August, 1535, which had dropped somewhat out of sight amid sieges and
battles, and the turmoil of war, came again to the front. That edict proclaimed
Protestantism as the religion of Geneva. But Farel did not deceive himself with the
fiction that the decree which proclaimed Geneva Protestant had really made it so. The
seat of religion, he well knew, is the hearts and understandings of a people, not the
edicts of a statute-book; and the great task of making the people really Protestant was
yet to be done. There were in Geneva a goodly number who loved the Gospel for its
own sake, and it was the strength of these men which had carried them through in
their great struggle; but the crown had yet to be put upon the work by making the
lives, as well as the profession, of the people Protestant.
This great labour was undertaken jointly by Farel and by the Council. The temporal
and spiritual powers, yoked together, drew lovingly the car of the Reform, and both
having one aim - the highest well-being of the people - neither raised those questions
of jurisdiction, or felt those rivalries and jealousies, which subsequent times so
plentifully produced. There is a time to set landmarks, and there is a time to remove
them.
47
Farel, occupying the pulpit, sent forth those expositions of the Reformed doctrine
which were fitted to instruct the understandings and guide the consciences of the
Genevans: while the Council in the Senate-house framed those laws which were
intended to restrain the excesses and disorders into which the energetic and
headstrong natures of the citizens were apt to impel them. This, all will admit, was a
tolerably fair division of the labour.
Farel’s teaching laid a moral basis for the Council, and the Council’s authority
strengthened Farel, and opened the way for his teachings to reach their moral and
spiritual ends. A close examination of the matter, especially under the lights of
modern science, may, it is true, result in disclosing instances in which the Council did
the work of Farel, and Farel did the work of the Council; but we ought to bear in mind
that modern society was then in its infancy; that toleration was only in its dawn; and
that punctiliousness would have marred the work, and left Geneva a chaos.
Not only was the standard of Protestantism displayed in the August preceding again
raised aloft, but the moral and social regulations which had accompanied it, in order
to render it a life as well as a creed, were brought into the foreground. There never
was a class of men who showed themselves more anxious to join a moral with a
doctrinal Reformation than the Reformers of the sixteenth century. The separation
which at times has been seen between the two is the error of a later age. Re-entering
this path, the first labour of the Council and Farel was to establish a perfect concord
and unity among the citizens. Of those even who were with the Reform, and had
fought side by side against the duke, there were two parties - the zealous and the
lukewarm. Hates and mutual reproaches divided them. On the 6th of February, 1536,
the Council-General - that is, the whole body of the citizens - assembled, and passed
an edict, promising by oath to forget all past injuries, to cease from mutual
recriminations, to live henceforward in good brotherhood, and submit themselves to
the Syndics and Council.[14]
Next came the matter of public worship, The number, place, and time of the sermons
were fixed. Four ministers and two deacons were selected to preach on the appointed
days. Moderate stipends were assigned them from the ecclesiastical property. The
Sunday was to be religiously observed, and all the shops strictly closed. On that day,
besides the other services, there was to be sermon at four in the morning, for the
convenience of servants. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was to be dispensed
four times in the year. Baptisms were to take place only in the church at the hours of
public worship. Marriage might be celebrated any day, but the ceremony must be in
public, and after three several notifications of it.[15]
Last of all came the rules for the reformation of manners. Since the beginning of the
century Geneva had been, in fact, a camp, and its manners had become more than
rough. It was necessary, in the interests of morality, and of liberty not less, to put a
curb upon the wild license of former days. They had banished the duke, they must
banish the old Geneva. The magistrates forbade games of chance, oaths and
blasphemies, dances and lascivious songs, and the farces and masquerades in which
the people had been wont to indulge. They enjoined all persons to attend the sermons,
and other exercises of religion, and to retire to their homes at nine o’clock at night.
They specially commanded the masters of hotels and cabarets to see that their guests
observed these regulations. That no one might plead ignorance, these rules were
frequently proclaimed by sound of trumpet.
48
The education of the youth of the State was an object of special care to the
magistrates, who desired that they should be early grounded in the principles of virtue
and piety, as well as in a knowledge of the classical tongues, and the belles lettres. For
this end they erected a school or academy, with competent professors, to whom they
gave suitable salaries. There was a school in Geneva in Popish times, but it was so
badly managed that it accomplished nothing for the interests of education. The
Council-General, by a decree of May 21st, 1536, established a new seminary in the
convent of the Cordeliers on the Rive, and appointed as headmaster Antony Saunier,
the countryman and friend of Farel. The latter sought, in divers places, for learned
men willing to be teachers in this school.[16]
On the same 21st of May there was witnessed a solemn sight at Geneva. The whole
body of the citizens, the magistrates and ministers at their head, assembled in the
Cathedral of St. Peter, and with uplifted hands swore to renounce the doctrine of the
Roman Church, the mass and all that depends upon it, and to live according to the
laws of the Gospel. This national vow included the regulations we have just
enumerated, which were regarded as necessary deductions from the great Christian
law. Soon after this Farel composed, in conjunction with Calvin, who by this time had
joined him, a brief and simple Confession of Faith, in twenty-one articles,[17] which
was sworn to by all the citizens of the State, who appeared before the Council in
relays of tens, and had the oath administered to them. This was in the November
following.[18]
To mark the laying of the foundations of their Protestant State, and the new age
therewith introduced, the Genevans struck a new coin and adopted a new motto for
their city. In the times of paganism, being worshippers of the sun, they had taken that
luminary as their symbol. Latterly, retaining the radical idea in their symbol, they had
modified and enlarged it into the following motto: Post tenebras spero lucem - i.e.,
“After the darkness I hope for the light:” words which look like an unconscious
prophecy of a time of knowledge and truth in the future. Having established their
Reformation, the Genevans changed their motto once more. Post tenebras lucem “After darkness, light” - was the device stamped on the new money of the State, as if
to intimate that the light they looked for was now come.[19]
Finally, as an enduring monument of this great event, the citizens placed a tablet of
brass in front of the Town-house, with the following inscription engraved on it: Quum Anno M. D. Xxxv.
Profligata
Romani Antichristi
Tyrannide,
Abrogatisque Ejus Superstitionibus
Sacrosancta Christi Religio
Hic In Suam Puritatem
Ecclesia
In Melioirem Ordinem
Slngulari Dei Beneficio Reposita;
Et Simul
Pulsis Fugatisque Hostibus,
Urbs Ipsa In Suam Libertatem
Non Sine Insigni Miraculo
49
Restituta Fuerit:
Senatus Populusque Genevensis
Monumentum Hoc Perpeture Memoriae
Fieri,
Atque Hoc Loco Erigi
Curavit:
Quo Suam Erga Deum Gratitudi-Nem
Ad Posteros Testatam
Faceret.[20]
Never did more modest tablet record greater victory. That victory was too great, in
truth, to be represented by any monument of marble. No pomp of words, no
magnificence of art, could express its value. Protestantism, now planted on this spot,
which the struggles, the blood, and the prayers of believing men had won for it in the
midst of Christendom, rising aloft in its own majesty, and shining by its own
splendour, must be its own monument; or, if other memorial it is to have, it must be
just such simple record of accomplished facts as this tablet contains.
But, in truth, when the Genevans placed their memorial-stone in the front of their
Senate-house, they did not know half the worth of the victory they had won. No man,
at that day, could even guess at the many brilliant triumphs which lay folded up in this
one triumph. It required a century to evolve them. What is it that the men of Geneva
have done, according to their own account? They have rescued a little city from
tyranny and superstition, and consecrated it to liberty and pure Christianity. This does
not seem much. Had it been a great throne, or a powerful realm, it would have been
something; but a third-rate town, with only a few leagues of territory, what is that?
Besides, Geneva may be lost tomorrow. May not Spain and France come in any hour
and extinguish its liberties? They believe they may, and they make the attempt, but
only to find that while their armies are melting away, and their empires dissolving, the
sway of the little Protestant town is every year widening. Very diminutive is the spot;
but the beacon-light does not need a continent for a pedestal; a little rock will do; and
while the winds howl and the billows shake their angry crests, and roll their
thundering surges around its base, its ray still burns aloft, and streaming far and wide
over the waves, pierces the black night, and guides the bark of the mariner. What was
it the ancient sage demanded in order to be able to move the world? Only a fixed
point. Geneva was that fixed point. We shall see it in the course of time become the
material basis of a great moral empire.
50
CHAPTER 10
CALVIN ENTERS GENEVA - ITS CIVIL
AND ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTION
One day, towards the end of August, 1536, a stranger, of slender figure and pale face,
presented himself at the gates of Geneva. There was nothing to distinguish him from
the crowds of exiles who were then arriving almost daily at the same gates, except it
might be the greater brightness that burned in his eye. He had come to rest only for a
night, and depart on the morrow. But as he traversed the streets on his way to his
hotel, a former acquaintance - Du Tillet, say some; Caroli, say others - recognised
him, and instantly hurried off to tell Farel that Calvin was in Geneva.
When, nearly a year ago, we parted with Calvin, he was on his way across the Alps to
visit Renee, the daughter of Louis XII. of France, and wife of Hercules d’Este, Duke
of Ferrara. “He entered Italy,” as he himself said, “only to leave it,”[1] though not till
he had confirmed the illustrious princess, at whose court he sojourned, in her
attachment to the Protestant faith, in which, despite the many and peculiar trials to
which her constancy exposed her, she steadfastly continued to her life’s end. His
eldest brother dying, Calvin recrossed the mountains, on a hasty journey to his
birthplace, most probably to arrange the family affairs,[2] and leave Noyon for ever.
Where shall he next go?. The remembrance of the studious days he had passed at
Basle returned to him with irresistibly attractive force, and now, accompanied by his
brother Antoine, and his sister Maria,[3] he was on his way to his former retreat; but
the direct road through Lorraine was blocked up by the armies of Charles V., and this
compelled him to make a detour by Switzerland, which brought him to the gates of
Geneva.
With startled but thankful surprise Farel received the news that the author of the
Christian Institutes was in the city. God, he thought, had sent, at a critical moment, the
man of all others whom he most wished to associate with himself in the work of
reforming Geneva.
Farel had begun to feel the difficulty of the task he had in hand. To break this people
from their habits of lawless indulgence, nurtured by the contests in which they had
won their liberty, would indeed be no easy matter. They would spurn all attempts to
coerce them, and yield only to the force of a stronger will, and the sway of a loftier
genius. Besides, the highest organising skill was demanded in the man who should set
up a moral tribunal in the midst of this licentious city, and found on this unpromising
spot an empire which should pervade with its regenerating spirit nations afar off, and
generations yet unborn. Believing that he had found in Calvin one who possessed all
these great qualities, Farel was already on his way to visit him.
Farel now stands before the author of the Institutes. He beholds a man of small stature
and sickly mien. Were these the shoulders on which he should lay a burden which
would have tasked the strength of Atlas himself? We can well believe that Farel
experienced some moments of painful misgivings. To reassure himself he had to
recall to mind, doubtless, the profound wisdom, the calm strength, and the sublimity
of principle displayed on every page of the Institutes. That was the real Calvin. Now
Farel began to press his suit. He was here combating alone. He had to do daily battle
51
against an atrocious tyranny outside the city, and against a licentious Libertinism
within it. Come, he said to the young Reformer, and be my comrade in the campaign.
Calvin’s reply was a refusal. His constructive and practical genius was then unknown
even to himself. His sphere, he believed, was his library; his proper instrument of
work, his pen; and to cast himself into a scene like that before him was, he believed,
to extinguish himself. Panting to be at Basle or at Strasburg, where speaking from the
sanctuary of a studious and laborious privacy, he could edify all the Churches, he
earnestly besought Farel to stand aside and let him go on his way.
But Ferel would not stand aside. Putting on something of the authority of an ancient
prophet, he commanded the young traveller to remain and labour in Geneva, and he
imprecated upon his studies the curse of God, should he make them the pretext for
declining the call now addressed to him.[4] It was the voice not of Farel, but of God,
that now spoke to Calvin; so he felt; and instantly he obeyed. He loved, in after-life,
to recall that, “fearful adjuration,” which was, he would say, “as if God from on high
had stretched out his hand to stop me.”[5]
Calvin’s journey was now at an end. He had reached the spot where his life’s work
was to be done. Here, in this grey city, clinging to its narrow rocky site, the calm lake
at its feet, and the glories of the distant mountains in its sky, was he for twenty-eight
years to toil and wage battle, and endure defeat, but to keep marching on through toil
and defeat, to more glorious victory in the end than warrior ever won with his sword,
and then he would fall on sleep, and rest by the banks of that river whose “arrowy”
stream he had crossed but a few minutes before, he gave his hand to Farel, and in
doing so he gave himself to Geneva.
If the destiny of Calvin was from that moment changed; if from a student he became a
legislator and leader; if from being a soldier in the ranks he became generalissimo of
the armies of Protestantism, not less was the destiny of Geneva from that moment
changed. Calvin had already written a book that constituted an epoch in Protestantism,
but he was to write it a second time; though not with pen and ink. He would display
before all Christendom the Institutes, not as a volume of doctrines, but as a system of
realised facts - a State rescued from the charnel-house of corruption, and raised to the
glorious heritage of liberty and virtue - glorious in art, in letters, and in riches,
because resplendent with every Christian virtue. To write Protestantism upon their
banners, to proclaim it in their edicts, to install it as a worship in their Churches,
Calvin and all the Reformers held to be but a small affair; what they strove above all
things to achieve was to plant it as an operative moral force in the hearts of men, and
at the foundations of States.
Calvin was now at the age of twenty-seven. The magistrates of Geneva welcomed
him, but with a cautious reserve, if we may judge from the first mention of his name
in the registers of the city, about a fortnight after his arrival, as “that Frenchman!” He
was appointed to give lectures on the Scriptures, and to preach.[6] Beza styles him
“doctor or professor of sacred letters,” but as yet no academy existed, and his
prelections were delivered in the cathedral. As regards the latter function, that of
preacher, it was some time before Calvin would assume it. When at length he
appeared in the pulpit as pastor, he spoke with an eloquence so simple and clear, yet
so majestic and luminous, that his audiences continued daily to grow. He had already
done a winter’s work, but had received scarcely any wages, for we read in the Council
52
Registers, under date February 13th, 1537: “Six gold crowns are given to Cauvin or
Calvin, seeing that he has hitherto scarcely received anything.”[7]
It was not long till Calvin’s rare genius for system and organisation began to display
itself. Within three months from the commencement of his labours in Geneva, he had,
in conjunction with Farel, compiled a brief but comprehensive creed, setting forth the
leading doctrines of the Christian faith. To this he added a Catechism,[8] not that, in
question and answer, for children, which we now possess, but one adapted to adults.
The Genevans, with uplifted hands, had embraced Protestantism: Calvin would show
them what that Protestantism was which they had professed, and what were the moral
duties which it demanded of all its adherents. The Genevans had lifted up their hands:
had they bowed their hearts? This was the main question with him. He had no trust in
blind obedience. Knowledge must be the corner-stone of the new State, the
foundations of which he was now laying.
We can give here only the briefest outline of this Confession of Faith. Placing the
Word of God in the foreground, as the one infallible authority, and the one and sole
rule, it proceeds, in twenty-one articles, to declare what Scripture teaches, touching
God, and the plan of redemption which he has provided for man fallen and helpless. It
proclaims Christ the one channel of all blessing; the Spirit, the one Author of all good
works; faith, “the entrance to all these riches;” and then goes on to speak of the
apparatus set up for offering redemption to men, the Sacraments and ministers. Then
follow articles on the Church, “comprehending the whole body of true believers;” on
excommunication, or the exclusion from the Church of all manifestly unholy and
vicious persons, till they shall have repented; and, in fine, on magistracy, “an
ordinance of God,” and to be respected “in all ordinances that do not contravene the
commandments of God.” On the 10th of November, 1536, this Confession was
received and approved of by the Council of Two Hundred.[9]
To the half-Protestantised citizens of Geneva the sting of this document was in the
end of it - ex-communication. The other articles had simply to be professed, this one
was heavier than them all, inasmuch as it had to be borne. What did this power
import? Was the Protestant excommunication but the Papal anathema under another
name? Far from it. It carried with it no cruel infliction. It operated in no preternatural
or mystic manner, inflicting blight upon the soul. It did not even pronounce on the
state of the man before God. It simply found that his life was manifestly unholy, and,
therefore, that he was unfit for a holy society, and in token of his exclusion it withheld
from him the Sacraments. No society can exist without laws or rules; but of what use
are laws without an executive or tribunal to administer them? and without the right of
inflicting penalties, a tribunal would be powerless; and a lighter penalty than
“excommunication” or expulsion it would be impossible to conceive or devise.
Without this power the Church in Geneva would have been a city without walls and
bulwarks; it would have been dissolved the moment it was formed.
It is necessary at this stage to refer to the Constitution - civil and ecclesiastical - of
Geneva, in order that the course of affairs may be clearly intelligible. The
fundamental principle of the State was, that the people are the source of power. In
accordance therewith came, first, a Convention of all the citizens, termed the CouncilGeneral.
53
This was the supreme authority. To obviate the confusion and turbulence incident to
so large an assembly, a Council of Two Hundred was chosen, termed the Great
Council.[10] Next came the Little, or ordinary Council, consisting of twenty-five
members, including the four Syndics of the city.
This last, the Council of Twenty-five, was the executive, and possessed moreover a
large share of the judicial and legislative power. The constitutional machinery we
have described in detail was popularly summed up thus - the PEOPLE, the
COUNCIL, and SENATE of Geneva. The Council-General - that is, the People - was
convoked only once a year, in November, to elect the four Syndics. Besides this
annual assembly, it met on important emergencies, or when fundamental changes
were to be determined upon, and then only. The actual government of the State was
mainly in the hands of the Council of Twenty-five, which was by constitution largely
oligarchic. Such was the republic when Calvin became a member of it.
With Protestantism there arrived a new power in Geneva - the religious, namely - and
we complete our picture of the government of the little State when we describe the
provision made for the exercise of the ecclesiastical authority. The court or tribunal
which took cognisance of Church scandals was the Consistory. The Consistory was
composed of the five ministers of the city and twelve laymen.[11] It met every
Thursday, and the highest penalty it had power to inflict was excommunication, by
which is meant expulsion from the Church. If this failed to reclaim the offender, the
Consistory had the right to report the case to the Council, and require it to proceed
therein according to the laws.
In judging of this arrangement time and circumstances are to be taken into account.
The course of affairs at Geneva inevitably tended to graft the ecclesiastical upon the
civil government, and to some extent to build up the two in one. It was Protestantism
that had called Geneva into existence as a free State. Protestantism was its soul, the
centre and citadel of its liberties, and whatever tended to weaken or overthrow that
principle tended equally to the ruin of the republic. Encompassed on all sides by
powerful enemies, this one principle was the bond of their union and the shield of
their freedom; and this went far to impart, in many cases, a two-fold character to the
same action, and to justify the Church in regarding certain acts as sins, and visiting
them with her censures, while the State viewed the same acts as crimes, and meted out
to them its punishments.
Calvin took the Jewish theocracy as his model when he set to work to frame, or rather
to complete, the General Republic. What we see on the banks of the Leman is a
theocracy; Jehovah was its head, the Bible was its supreme code, and the government
exercised a presiding and paternal guardianship over all interests and causes, civil and
spiritual. Geneva, in this respect, was a reproduction of the Old Testament state of
society. We of the nineteenth century regard this as a grave error. At the same time, it
must be acknowledged that Calvin grasped the essential distinction between things
civil and things ecclesiastical, and the necessity of placing the two under distinct
jurisdictions or powers. But his theocratic views produced a dimness and confusion in
his ideas on that head, and he was more successful in settling the just limits of the
ecclesiastical authority, than he was in defining those of the civil jurisdiction. He
would not allow a particle of civil power to the Consistory, but he was not equally
careful to withhold ecclesiastical power from the Council. This error arose from his
making the Old Testament a model on a point which, we believe, was temporary and
54
local, not permanent and universal. Nevertheless, the Reformer of Geneva stood
ahead in this great question of all his predecessors. We may quote here the words of a
great statesman, and a countryman of Calvin’s, who has done justice to the Reformer
on this point. “A principle,” says Guizot, “we should rather say a passion, held sway
in Calvin’s heart, and was his guiding star in the permanent organisation of the
Church which he founded, as well as in his personal conduct during his life. That
principle is the profound distinction between the civil and the religious community.
Distinction, we say, and by no means separation. Calvin, on the contrary, desired
alliance between the two communities and the two powers, but each to be independent
in its own domain, combining their action, showing mutual respect, and lending
mutual support … In this principle and this fundamental labour,” continues the
historian, “there are two new and bold reforms attempted in the very heart of the great
Reformation of Europe, and over and above the work of its first promoters.” in proof,
Guizot goes on to instance England, where the “royal supremacy” was accepted;
Switzerland, where the Council of State held the sovereign authority in matters of
religion; and Germany, where the magistrate was the chief bishop; and continues: “In
this great question as to the relations between Church and State, Calvin desired and
did more, than his predecessors … in spite of the resistance often showed him by the
civil magistrates, in spite of the concessions he was sometimes obliged to make to
them, he firmly maintained this principle, and he secured to the Reformed Church of
Geneva, in purely religious questions and affairs, the right of self-government,
according to the faith and the law as they stand written in the Holy Books.”[12]
In this statement of facts, Guizot is undoubtedly correct. Only we think that he is
mistaken in believing that it was the Church of Rome, and the “independence of its
head,” which taught the Reformer the “strength and dignity” conferred on the Church
by having “an existence distinct from the civil community.” Calvin learned the idea
from a Diviner source. Nor was he quite so successful in extricating the spiritual from
the civil jurisdiction, either in idea or in reality, as Guizot appears to think. As
regarded the idea, he was embarrassed by the Old Testament theocracy, which he took
to be a Divine model for all times; and as regarded the actuality, the opposition which
he encountered from the civil authority at Geneva made it impossible for hint to
realize his idea so fully as he wished to do. But it is only justice to bear in mind that
his ideal was far in advance of his age, as Guizot has said.
55
CHAPTER 11
SUMPTUARY LAWS - CALVIN
AND FAREL BANISHED
Calvin’s theological code was followed by one of morals. There were few cities in
Christendom that had greater need of such a rule than the Geneva of that day. For
centuries it had known almost nothing of moral discipline. The clergy were
notoriously profligate, the government was tyrannical, and the people, in
consequence, were demoralised. Geneva had but one redeeming trait, the love of
liberty. The institutions of learning were neglected, and the manners of the Genevans
were as rude as their passions were violent. They revelled, they danced, they played at
cards, they fought in the streets, they sung indecent songs, uttered fearful
blasphemies; indulged, in short, in all sorts of excesses. It was clear that Protestantism
must cleanse the city or leave it. Geneva was nothing unless it was moral; it could not
stand a day. This was the task to which Calvin now turned his attention.
This introduces the subject of the sumptuary laws, which were sketched at this time,
though not finished till an after-period. The rules now framed forbade games of
chance, oaths and blasphemies, dances,[1] lascivious songs, farces, and masquerades.
The hours of taverners were shortened; every one was to be at home by nine at night,
and hotel-keepers were to see that these rules were observed by their guests. To these
were added certain regulations with a view of restraining excess in dress and
profusion at meals. All were enjoined to attend sermon and the other religious
exercises.[2]
Even before the time of Calvin, under the Roman Church, most of these practices, and
especially dances, had been forbidden under severe penalties. Forty years after his
death, under Henry IV. of France, similar edicts were promulgated.[3] The British
Government at this day adopts the principle of the Genevan regulations, when it
forbids gambling, indecent pictures and plays, and similar immoralities; and if such
laws are justifiable now, how much more so in Calvin’s time, when there were
scarcely any amusements that were innocent!
The second battle with the citizens proved a harder one than the first with the priests,
and the reformation of manners a more difficult task than the reformation of beliefs.
The citizens remembered the halcyon days they had enjoyed under their bishop, and
contrasted them with the moral restraints imposed upon them by the Consistory. The
reproofs which Calvin thundered against their vices from the pulpit were intolerable
to many, perhaps to most. The population was a mixed one. Many were still Papists at
heart; some were Anabaptists, and others were deeply tainted with that infidel and
materialistic philosophy which had been growing quietly up under the shade of the
Roman Church. The successful conflict the Genevans had waged for their political
independence helped, too, to make them less willing to bow to the Protestant yoke.
Was it not enough that they had shed their blood to have the Gospel preached to
them? It was mortifying to find that very Protestantism which they had struggled to
establish turning round upon them, and weighing them in its scales, and finding them
wanting.
56
Loud and indignant cries were raised against Calvin for neglecting his office.
Appointed to be an expositor of Scripture, who made him, asked his calumniators, a
censor of morals and a reprover of the citizens?
Religion, in the age gone by, had been too completely dissociated from morality to
make the absurdity of this accusation palpable. The Libertines, as the oppositionists
began now to be called, demanded the abolition of the new code; they complained
especially of the “excommunication.” “What!” said they, “have we put down the
Popish confessional only to set up a Protestant one?” and mounting party badges, they
wore green flowers in mockery of the other citizens, calling them “brothers in
Christ.”[4] The Government began to be intimidated by these clamours. The majority
of the citizens being still on the side of the ministers, the Council ventured on issuing
an edict, commanding the Libertines to leave the city.
But it had not the courage to enforce its own order; and the Libertines, seeing its
weakness, grew every day more insolent. At length the elections in February, 1538,
gave a majority in their favour in the Council; three out of the four Syndics were on
the side of the Libertines.[5] This turn of affairs placed the pastors in a position of
extreme difficulty. They stood in front of a hostile Council, pushed on from behind by
a hostile population. Calvin remained firm. His resolution was taken unalterably to
save his principle, come what might to himself. He was determined at all hazards not
to give holy things to unholy men; for he saw that with that principle must stand or
fall the Reformation in Geneva.
While these intestine convulsions shook the city within, invasion threatened it
without. The strifes of the citizens were the signal to their old enemies to renew their
attempts to recover Geneva. The inhabitants fortified the walls, cast the superfluous
bells into cannon, and placed them upon the ramparts.[6] Alas! this would avail but
little, seeing they were all the while pulling down that which was their true defence.
With their morality was bound up their Protestantism, and should it depart, not all
their stone walls would prevent their becoming once more the prey of Rome.
At this stage the matter was still further embroiled by the interference of Bern. The
government of that powerful canton, ambitious of assuming the direction of affairs at
Geneva, counselled the Genevese to restore certain ceremonies which had been
retained in the Bernese Reformation, but cast off in the Genevan one; among others,
holidays, and the use of unleavened bread in the Communion.[7] Calvin and Farel
demurred to the course recommended.
The moment the sentiments of the pastors became known, a vehement zeal seized the
Libexines to have the Lord’s Supper dispensed with unleavened bread. The
Government decided that it should be as the Libertines desired. With Calvin a much
greater question was whether the Communion should be given to these persons at all.
As Easter approached, the fury of the party increased. They ran through the streets at
night vociferating and yelling. They would stop before the pastors’ houses, calling
out, “To the Rhone! to the Rhone!” and would then fire off their arquebuses. They got
up a masquerade in which they parodied that very ordinance which their scrupulous
consciences would not permit them to receive save with unleavened bread. Frightful
confusion prevailed in Geneva. This is attested by eye-witnesses, and by those who
had the best opportunities of knowing the truth of what they have narrated. “Popery
had indeed been forsworn,” says Beza, “but many had not cast away with it those
57
numerous and disgraceful disorders which had for a long time flourished in the city,
given up as it was for so many years to canons and impure priests.”[8] “Nothing was
to be heard,” says Reset, “but informations and quarrels between the former and
present lords (the old and new members of Council), some being the ringleaders, and
others following in their steps, the whole mingled with reproaches about the booty
taken in the war, or the spoils carried off from the churches.”[9] “I have lived here,”
says Calvin himself, describing those agitations, “engaged in strange contests. I have
been saluted in mockery of an evening before my own door, with fifty or sixty shots
of arquebuses. You may imagine how that must asteroid a poor scholar, timid as I am,
and as I confess I always was.”[10] It was amid these shameful scenes that the day
arrived which was to show whether the Libertines backed by the Council, or Calvin
supported by his own great principle, would give way.
On the morning of Easter Sunday, 1538, the great bell Clemence rung out its
summons, and all the quarters of the city poured out their inhabitants to fill the
churches. Farel ascended the pulpit of St. Gervais, Calvin occupied that of St. Peter’s.
In the audience before them they could see the Libertines in great force. All was calm
on the surface, but a single word might let loose the winds and awake the tempest.
Nevertheless they would do their duty. The pastors expounded the nature of the
Lord’s Supper; they described the dispositions required in those who would worthily
partake of it; and appealing to the disorders which had reigned in the city in the past
weeks, in proof that these were not the dispositions of the majority of those now
assembled, they concluded by intimating that this day the Holy Supper would not be
dispensed. Hereupon, outcries drowned the voice of the preachers. The uproar was
specially great in St. Gervais; swords were unsheathed, and furious men rushed
toward the pulpit. Farel waited with his arms crossed. He had long since learned to
look on angry faces without trembling. Calvin in St. Peter’s was equally resolute.
Sooner should his blood dye the boards he stood upon, than he would be guilty of the
profanation demanded of him. “We protest before you all,” he said, “that we are not
obstinate about the question of bread, leavened or unleavened; that is a matter of
indifference, which is left to the discretion of the Church. If we decline to administer
the Lord’s Supper, it is because we are in a great difficulty, which prompts us to this
course.” Farel had borne the brunt of the tempest in the morning, it was to be Calvin’s
turn in the evening. On descending to the Church of Rive, the former Convent of St.
Francis, near the shores of the lake, he found the place already filled with an
assembly, many of whom had brought their swords with them. Whatever
apprehensions the young Reformer may have felt, he presented to the assembly,
which hung upon the edge of the storm, a calm and fearless front. He had not been
more than eighteen months in their city, and yet he had inspired them with an awe
greater than that which they felt even for Farel.
These two were men of the same spirit, as of the same office, and yet they were
unlike, and the Genevans saw the difference. Farel was the man of oratory, Calvin
was the man of power. In what attribute or faculty, or combination of faculties, his
power lay, they would have had great difficulty in saying. Certainly it was not in his
gestures, nor in his airs, nor in the pomp of his rhetoric, for no one could more
sedulously eschew these things; but that he did possess power - calm, inflexible,
resistless power - they all knew, for they all felt it. Farel’s invectives and
denunciations were terrible; his passion was grand, like the thunderstorms of their
own Alps; but there was something in the noise that tempered his severity, and
58
softened his accusations. Calvin never thundered and lightened. Had he done so it
would have been a relief; the Genevans would have felt him to be more human and
genial - a man of like passions with themselves; at least, of like passions with Farel,
whom they regarded with a mixture of love and fear, and whom they could not help
half-forgiving, even when he was rousing their anger by his reproaches. But in his
terrible calmness, in his passionless reason, Calvin stood apart from, and rose above,
all around him - above Farel - even above the Council, whose authority was dwarfed
before the moral majesty that seemed to clothe this man. He was among them like an
incarnate conscience; his utterances were decrees, just and inflexible, like the laws of
heaven themselves. Whence had he come, this mysterious and terrible man? Noyon
was his birth-place, but what influences had moulded such a spirit? and what chance
was it which had thrown him into their city to hold them in his spell, and rule them as
neither bishop, nor duke, nor Pope had been able to rule them? They would try
whether they could not break his yoke. For this end they had brought their swords
with them.
The historians who were eye-witnesses of the scene that followed are discreet in their
accounts of it. It did not end so tragically as it threatened, and instead of facts that
would not redound to the honour of their city, they treat us to felicitations that the
affair had no worse a termination. What the words were that evoked the tempest we
do not know. It was not necessary that they should be strong, seeing the more violent
the more welcome would they be. While Calvin is preaching we see a dark frown pass
suddenly over the faces of the assembly. Instantly there come shouts and outcries; a
moment after, the clatter of weapons being hastily unsheathed salutes our ears; the
next, we are dazzled by the gleam of naked swords. The tempest has burst with
tropical suddenness and violence. The infuriated men, waving their weapons in the
face of the preacher, press forward to the pulpit. One single stroke and Calvin’s career
would have been ended, and not his only - with him would have ended the career of
Geneva as the new foothold of the Reformation. Farel had felt the burden too heavy
for him; and had Calvin fallen, we know of no one who could have taken his place.
What a triumph for Rome, who would have re-entered Geneva over the mangled
corpse of the Reformer! But what a disaster to Europe, the young day of which would
have been quenched in the blackness of a two-fold night - that of a rising atheism, and
that of a returning superstition!
But the movement was not fated so to end. He who had scattered the power of
emperors and armies when they stood in battle array against the Reformation, stilled
the clamours of furious mobs when they rose to extinguish it. The same buckler that
covered Luther in the Diet of Worms, was extended over the head of Calvin amid the
glittering swords in the Church of Rive. In that assembly were some who were the
friends of the Reformer; they hastily threw themselves between the pulpit and the
furious men who were pressing forward to strike. This check gave time to the less
hostile among Calvin’s foes to recover their senses, and they now remonstrated with
the more violent on the crime they were about to commit, and the scandal they would
cause if they succeeded in their object. Their anger began to cool; first one and then
another put back his sword into its sheath; and after some time calm was restored.
Michael Roset, the chronicler and magistrate, who appears to have been present, says,
with an evident sense of relief, “The affair passed off without bloodshed ;” and the
words of the syndic Guatier, who reckoned its peaceable ending a sort of miracle,
show how near it had been to having a very different termination,[11] The Reformer’s
59
friends did not think it prudent to leave him undefended, though the storm seemed to
have spent itself. Forming an escort round him, they conducted him to his home.
On the morrow the Council of Two Hundred met, and pronounced sentence of
banishment upon the two ministers. This sentence was ratified on the following day
by the Council-General or assembly of the people. On the decision being intimated to
Calvin, he replied with dignity, “Had I been the servant of man, I should have
received but poor wages; but happy for me it is that I am the servant of him who never
fails to give his servants that which he has promised them.” The Council rested its
sentence of banishment upon the question of “unleavened bread.” Herein it acted
disingenuously. The pastors had protested that the question of leavened or unleavened
bread in the Eucharist was with them an open one.
The real ground of banishment is one on which the magistrates of Geneva, for
obvious reasons, are silent - namely, the refusal of Farel and Calvin to celebrate the
Lord’s Supper, on account of the blasphemies and immoralities indulged in by many
of those who demanded admission to the Communion-table. Before being
condemned, Calvin asked to be heard in his defence before the Council-General, but
his request was refused.[12]
It is important to mark, at this stage, that the principle on which the Reformer rested
his whole scheme of Church government was - holy things are not to be given to the
unholy. This principle he laboured to make inviolable, as being the germ, in the first
place, of purity in the Church; and, in the second, of morality and liberty in the State.
The principle was, as we have seen, on this its first attempt to assert itself, cast out
and trodden under foot of an infidel democracy. That party, in the days of Calvin, was
only in its first sprouting; it has since grown to greatness, and put forth its strength on
a wider theatre, and the world has seen it, particularly in France, pull down and tread
into the dust kings and hierarchies. But Calvin’s principle, being Divine, could not
perish under the blows now dealt it. It was overborne for the moment, and driven out
of Geneva in the persons of its champions; but it lifted itself up again, and, entering
Geneva, was there, fifteen years afterwards, crowned with victory.
60
CHAPTER 12
CALVIN AT STRASBURG - ROME
DRAWS NEAR TO GENEVA
With steps slow and sad, and looks cast behind - for it was hard to relinquish all hope
of a city on which they had bestowed so much labour - did the two banished ministers
pursue their uncertain way. After an ineffectual attempt on the part of Bern and
Zurich to compose the quarrel, Farel went to Neuchatel, which became the field of his
future labours, and thus he completed the building of which he had laid the
foundations in years gone by. Calvin, journeying by way of Basle, and halting awhile
in a city which he loved above all others, ultimately repaired to Strasburg, to which he
had been earnestly invited by the two pastors of that city, Bucer and Capito. Three
years of honourable labour awaited him in Strasburg.
Distinguished foreigners, exiles for the Gospel, gathered round him; the French
refugees, said to be about 15,000 in number, forming themselves into a congregation,
made him their pastor; and the Town Council, appropriating the Church of the
Dominicans to his use, appointed him to give lectures on the Scriptures. His audience
was a more erudite and polished one than any Geneva could then furnish, for only
through Calvin was Geneva to become learned. The love of Strasburg was as balm to
the smitten and wounded heart of the exile.[1]
The expulsion of the two ministers did not calm the tempest that raged in the little
State on the banks of the Leman. The Council, perhaps to show that they could govern
without Calvin, published some new edicts for the reformation of manners; but, alas!
moral power had departed with the ministers, and the commands of the magistrates
were unheeded. The more distant the retreating steps of Farel and Calvin, the louder
grew the disorders in the city they had left. The preachers, Marcourt and Morand, who
now occupied the vacated pulpits, were simply objects of contempt.[2] They soon
quitted the city in disgust. The Council thought to make the two rectors of the school
which Farel had opened for though there were 900 priests there was not a
schoolmaster in Geneva - supply their place. The two teachers rose up and shook the
dust from their feet, and the school was closed. The dominant faction had demanded
“liberty,” and now, left without either religious guide or secular instructor, they were
in a fair way of being as free as their hearts could wish, and eminently pious to boot,
if there be truth in the maxim that “ignorance is the mother of devotion.[3]
Calvin, in his new sphere at Strasburg, preached four times a week, and discharged all
the other duties, private and public, of a faithful pastor. He lectured every day on
theological science to the students of the Academy, taking as his text-book the Gospel
of St. John and the Epistle to the Romans, which he expounded. The fame of his
lectures drew students from other countries, and Strasburg promised to rival
Wittemberg as a school of theology.[4] The Reformer had asked no salary from the
magistrates, and they were in no haste to assign him one, and now he was in deep
poverty: He appears to have been still in receipt of a small sum from his paternal
inheritance, which he strove to supplement by the sale of his books. Painful it must
have been to him to part with these, but he had no alternative, for we find him writing
to Farel at this time that he “did not possess a farthing.” The Senate of Strasburg
afterwards appointed him a stipend, but so small that it did not suffice for his wants.
But we return to Geneva.
61
Calvin being gone, the Pope now drew near. He had been watching the ripening of the
pear for some time, and now he deemed it fit to be plucked. Cardinal Sadoleto was
employed to write a letter to the people of Geneva, which, it was thought, was all that
was needed to make them re-enter the old fold. Than Sadoleto no fitter man could
have been found for this task. Having passed his youth at the court of Leo X., he was
quite as much a son of the Renaissance as a son of the Church. He overflowed with
that mild tolerance which, bred of indifferentism, is sometimes mistaken for true
liberality. He could write any number of fine sentiments in the purest Latin. He was of
irreproachable life. The Protestants sometimes thought that he was about to become
one of themselves. But no: he loved the calm of letters, and the aesthetic delights of
art. Above all, he rejoiced in the security and comfort of an infallible Church. It saved
the toil of inquiry and the torment of doubt.
His letter “to the Senate and People of Geneva” was such as might have been
expected from such a man. He began by protesting his ancient affection for them; he
praised their many noble qualities; and he “drowned his page” with his poignant grief
at their misfortunes. Alas! that they had suffered themselves to be seduced into
Protestantism, which, however, he was good enough to say contained a modicum of
truth. And so, tasking the elegance of his pen to the utmost, he coined some glowing
compliments in praise of Holy Writ, of Christ as the sole Author of salvation, and of
the doctrine of justification by faith. In thus expressing himself, Sadoleto had not the
remotest intention of becoming a disciple of the Protestant faith; he was only
beckoning back the Genevans to repose beneath the tiara. In an infallible Church only
could they find escape from such storms as the exercise of private judgment had let
loose upon them.
The letter had the very opposite effect from that which it was expected to produce. It
helped to show the men of Geneva the brink to which they were drawing nigh. Are we
then, they said to themselves on reading the cardinal’s letter, so near to Rome that the
Pontiff believes he has only to open the gates in order that we may come in?
Moreover it made them feel the loss they had sustained in the banishment of Calvin;
they looked around for a man to reply to Sadoleto, for they felt that his letter must not
remain unanswered, but they looked in vain. One name was on every lip as that of the
man who alone was adequate to the task of replying, but with the ink not yet dry in
which the banishment of the man who bore that name was written, they dared not
utter it. This showed, however, that the tide had begun to turn. Calvin meanwhile got
a copy of the cardinal’s letter at Strasburg, and without waiting to be asked by the
Genevans he answered it forthwith, and in such fashion that Sadoleto made no second
attempt of the sort.[5] Calvin’s reply to Sadoleto was the work of six days, and it
remains a monument of his genius. He begins by paying a fine compliment to the
cardinal’s learning and eloquence, and goes on to express his wonder at the “singular
love and goodwill” which Sadoleto, an entire stranger to the people of Geneva, had so
suddenly conceived for them, “of which nevertheless no fruit ever appeared.” “If,”
continues Calvin, “it was ambition and avarice,” as Sadoleto had hinted, which moved
him in separating from Rome, what a blunder had he fallen into! “Certain it is,” said
he, “if I had paid regard to my personal advantage, I should never have separated
from your faction.” “Was not,” he asks, “our shortest way of attaining to wealth and
honours to accept from the first the conditions which you have offered us?” Apostates
you call us, says Calvin. “The men of Geneva, extricating themselves from the slough
of error in which they were sunk, have returned to the doctrine of the Gospel, and this
62
thou callest abandoning the truth of God. They have withdrawn from Papal tyranny,
and this thou sayest is to separate from the Church!” “We contradict the Fathers!”
exclaims the Reformer, adverting to another charge the cardinal had brought against
the Protestants, “we are more nearly in agreement with antiquity than you our
opponents, as thou knowest, Sadoleto, and we ask for nothing else than to see restored
that ancient face of the Church which has been torn to pieces and almost destroyed by
the Pope and his faction.” And after reminding the cardinal of what his learning made
him well acquainted with, namely, the condition of the Church during the days of both
the Greek and the Latin Fathers, Calvin asks him, “Wilt thou call that man an enemy
of antiquity who, full of zeal for ancient piety, longs to restore in their first splendour
the things which are now corrupted? With what right are we accused of having
subverted the ancient discipline by the very party that has abolished it?”
With a few strokes Calvin next draws a picture of the state in which the Reformers
found the schools and the pulpits: nothing taught in the first but “pure sophistries,”
“tangled and twisted scholastic theology,” “a kind of secret magic.” And as for the
pulpits, “there were no sermons from which foolish old women did not learn more
dreams than they could relate in a month by their own fireside.” Was it a crime to
have replaced that rubbish by a theology drawn from the Word of God, and to have
silenced the monks by filling the pulpits with preachers of the ancient Gospel? There
follow some noble passages on justification by faith, on Christ’s sole mediatorship, on
worship, the Lord’s Supper, the ministry, the Church, and then comes the close, in
which the Reformer reproduces, though in a contrary sense, Sadoleto’s prosopopaeia.
The cardinal had cited Calvin and his brethren as criminals before the judgment-seat
of God.
Calvin obeys this trumpet-summons. He comes to the dread tribunal to which the
cardinal had cited him, and he thus pleads: “I saw Christ cast into oblivion, and
become unprofitable; what was I to do? I saw the Gospel stifled by superstition; what
was I to do? I saw the Divine Word voluntarily ignored and hidden; what was I to do?
If he is not ‘to be reputed a traitor who, seeing the soldiers dispersed and scattered,
raises the captain’s ensign, rallies them, and restores their order,’ am I a traitor for
having raised amid the disbanded Church the old banner of Jesus Christ? For it is not
a new and ‘strange ensign which I have unfurled, but thy noble standard, O Lord!’”
He adds, with reference to Sadoleto’s taunt that they had broken the peace, “Did they
[the Romanists] not most suddenly and furiously betake themselves to the sword and
the gibbet? Did they not think that their sole resource was in arms and cruelty?” They
have given us in default of other consecration that of tribulation and of blood. We
know what we have done, and in whom we have believed, and “heaven grant,
Sadoleto, that thou and thine may one day be able to say as much sincerely.”[6]
Thus did Calvin, though banished, continue to cover Geneva with his shield. The
writing ran quickly through Europe. Luther read it and was delighted beyond measure
with it. His eye at once discerned its freedom, strength, and majesty. “Here,” said he,
“is a writing which has hands and feet. I rejoice that God raises up such men. They
will continue what I have begun against Antichrist, and by the help of God they will
finish it.”
Calvin has now become, or is very soon to become, the centre of the movement,
whose present position in Christendom is somewhat perilous. A crisis had arrived in
the great conflict between Romanism and Protestantism. It was clear to both parties
63
that the breach that divided them must be healed now, and that if a settlement was
much longer delayed the controversy would grow into an embittered and sanguinary
war, prolonged from decade to decade, and it might be for a still longer period.
During the years that Calvin resided at Strasburg, the Popish and Protestant worlds
assembled in not fewer than four successive conventions, to try whether it was not
possible to frame a basis on which the two Churches might come together, and peace
be restored to Christendom. The initiative of these conferences was taken by the
emperor on the part of the Romanists; and indeed of the two parties it was the latter
that had the stronger reasons for holding out the olive-branch.
Twenty-five years had now passed away in their efforts to put down Protestantism,
and instead of being able to recount a series of victories, they had little to show save a
list of defeats. All things worked contrariwise for them. If they held a disputation, it
was only to expose the weakness of their champions; if they convoked a synod, it was
only to hear a Protestant Confession; if they held a conference, it was to have some
new concession wrung from them; if they planted stakes, they found they were but
sowing the seed of new martyrs; if they leagued among themselves in order to strike a
combined blow, some untoward event fell out, some ally betrayed them, or the
ominous figure of the Turk started up, and so their plans came to nothing. The bow
broke just as the arrow was about to be let fly.
And, then, what at this hour was the attitude of the several nations as regarded their
obedience to the Papal chair? One half of the European States had placed themselves,
or were hastening to do so, beneath the banner on which was inscribed: “An open
Bible and a free conscience.”
The two Saxonys, Prussia, Hesse-Cassel, Wurtemberg, with some smaller States, and
a multitude of free cities, were now ranged round the great PROTEST. The better half
of Switzerland was lost to Rome. Few, save the herdsmen of the mountains, now
received her pardons and sent their money in return. Denmark and Sweden had
revolted. The powerful kingdoms of England and France were at that hour trembling
in the balance.
Everywhere men were kicking against Rome’s ancient and sacred sway, and soon, on
the north of the Alps, few subjects would remain to her. Parliaments were passing
laws to check her usurpations; her bulls were dishonoured; palls were at a discount;
tithes, annats, reservations, and expectatives were but as the gleanings after the
harvest; palmers and anchorets were disappearing from her highways; men were
burying her relics instead of worshipping them; the cowl and frock were being
abandoned for the garb of honest labour; schools and hospitals were replacing
monasteries and convents; the reading of the Scriptures was supplanting the counting
of beads, and the preaching of the Gospel the chanting of litanies and masses.
And then, in addition to all these losses, when the Romanists looked at the other side
they could not conceal from themselves the strength of the Protestant position. Not
only did the Reformation divide Christendom - not only did it receive the support of
States, princes, and free cities - but, further, it had created a multitude of agencies,
which were continually at work multiplying its adherents, and extending still farther
its area.
64
Foremost among these were the Sacred Oracles in the mother-tongue of the nations.
In the rear of this Divine instrumentality came nearly all the men of thought, of
letters, and of eloquence which the age could boast. Ever and anon Luther’s pen was
darting flashes of light over Europe.
Recently had come that magnificent demonstration, the Institutes. That work was
moving up and down in Christendom, an embattled phalanx of argument, compared
with which the legions of the emperor were as weakness. Around the two great chiefs,
Luther and Calvin, were a hundred keen and disciplined intellects ready to expose a
sophism, to confront a falsehood, to laugh at folly, and to castigate hypocrisy and
arrogance. Moreover, the habit of free inquiry, and the art of combining - of which the
Schmalkald League furnished an example, which was not lost upon its opponents had come to the aid of that cause which had given them birth. In fine, among the
forces on the side of Protestantism, not the least was the spirit of its disciples. They
could face the dungeon and the rack, the scaffold and the stake, and not quail; and in
the room of those who were burned to ashes today, hundreds would start up tomorrow
to grasp the falling standard, and bear it onward to victory. These considerations
could not but force themselves upon the minds of the Romanists, and weigh with
them in the overtures they now made to the Protestants. From the far-off banks of the
Tagus came a letter full of not unfriendly professions. Writing in the Alcazar at
Toledo, the 25th of November, 1539, the emperor invited the Protestant princes of
Germany to meet and try whether they could not devise measures of conciliation.[7]
Charles intimated at the same time that the King of France, with whom he was then at
peace, was equally solicitous on this point with himself.
In pursuance of this letter, the princes assembled next February at Frankfort. Eldo,
Archbishop of Lunden, represented the emperor at the conference. Calvin,
accompanied by Sturm, went thither, at the urgent solicitations of his brethren, mainly
with the view of watching over the interests of the Swiss Churches, and of having the
pleasure of meeting and conferring with Melancthon. The debates were long, but the
conclusions reached were of no great moment. All resulted in a truce, which was to
last for fifteen months, to permit a convention of theologians and learned men to meet
and discuss the steps necessary for quieting the religious troubles. Without the truce
the members would not have been sure of their heads. Meanwhile, prosecutions
against the Protestants in the imperial chamber were to be dropped, and no one on
either side was to be disturbed on account of his religion. The Protestants thought they
saw the cloven foot in the attempts to confine this agreement to those of the Augsburg
Confession. The emperor had the best reasons for excluding the Swiss from its
benefits. He knew that should the German and Swiss Reformers combine, and form
one Protestant camp, extending from the Baltic to the banks of the Rhone, and the
foot of the Pennine mountains, the cause of Rome would be lost north of the Alps, and
his own dynastic projects along with it.[8]
We turn with a peculiar pleasure from the chamber of conference, to the yet more
sacred chamber where the Reformation’s greatest scholar, and its greatest theologian,
were about to commune together. From the first moment Melancthon and Calvin
understood each other. Of Melancthon’s inviolable loyalty at heart to the Protestant
creed Calvin had not a doubt. The unwise concessions into which his love of peace at
times betrayed him, though they drew forth Calvin’s rebuke, never shook his
confidence in him. A free interchange of sentiments on the nature of the Eucharist
65
took place, and Calvin, as we learn from his letters to Farel, was delighted to find that
Melancthon’s opinions nearly approximated to his own, although his veneration for
Luther kept him from saying so in public. Future discussions, however showed that
the unanimity was not quite so great as Calvin had hoped. Their friendship,
nevertheless, continued unbroken throughout their lives, and yielded its fruits to the
Church of God. How deep and tender Calvin’s love for Melancthon was, is shown by
the touching words written after the grave had closed over the latter: “O Philip
Melancthon - for it is thou whom I address - thou who now livest at the hand of God
with Christ, awaiting us on high till we are gathered with thee into blessed repose - a
hundred times hast thou said to me when, wearied with toil and vexation, thou didst
lean thy head upon my bosom - Would to God, would to God, that I might die upon
that bosom! As for me, later, a hundred times have I wished that it had been granted
us to be together. Certainly thou wouldst have been bolder to face struggles, more
courageous to despise envy and calumny. Then, also, would have been suppressed the
malignity of many whose audacity increased in proportion to what they called thy
pusillanimity.”[9]
There is one other meeting that would have had greater interest for us than even that
which we see now taking place. It was intensely longed for on one side at least.
Writing to Luther, Calvin says, “Oh, if I could fly towards thee, and enjoy thy society,
were it but for a few hours!” One can not help asking, had Luther and Calvin met,
which would have appeared the greater? Would the breach in the Protestant host have
been healed, and the Wittemberg and Genevan camps been merged into one?
Would the splendour of Luther have paled before the calm majesty of Calvin, or
would the mighty strength of the latter have bowed before the swift intuition and
dazzling genius of the former? But, it was not to be that these two men should ever
see one another in the flesh. They were formed to dwell in spheres apart. The
impetuous Luther was given to the Teutonic nations, which needed his enthusiasm to
kindle them. Calvin was placed amid the excitable and volatile peoples of the South,
where his severe logic and love of order helped to curb their tendency to excess and
their passion to theorise. Had Luther gone to France - and there was a moment,
outside the gate of Augsburg, on the occasion of his flight from Cajetan, when he
thought of turning his horse’s head in that direction he would have kindled a
conflagration by his eloquence, which, after speedily blazing up, would as speedily
have sunk down and died out. And had Calvin, when he first visited Strasburg, instead
of turning southward to Basle, gone forward to Wittemberg, and made Germany the
scene of his labours, as he had some thoughts of doing, he would there doubtless have
been able to plant his system of Church order, but without that amount of enthusiasm
on the part of those who submitted to it, necessary to give it permanency, or to carry it
over Christendom, while the South would have become a prey to the pantheistic
theories of such men as Ochin and Servetus. What a beautiful ordering in the gifts of
these two men, in the place assigned to each in the field, and the time when they
entered it!
Luther had been the centre in the first act of the great drama. That was now closing,
and at the centre of the second act, which was about to open, Calvin stands up; with
an enthusiasm as great, but a logic more severe, to complete and crown the work of
his predecessor.
66
CHAPTER 13
ABORTIVE CONFERENCES
AT HAGENAU AND RATISBON
The next convention was held at Hagenau, the 25th of June, 1510. The assembly was
presided over by King Ferdinand. The Protestant princes were represented by their
deputies. A great number of divines were present, and among others Calvin.
Melancthon was taken in on the road, and was thus unavoidably absent. Ferdinand, on
the ground that the Protestant princes were not present, adjourned the assembly, to
meet at Worms on October 28th.[1] Meanwhile, it was attempted to steal a march on
the Protestants by requiring them to restore the buildings:, lands, and revenues which
they had taken from the Papists, and to promise that no new members should be
received into the Schmalkald League. These proposals were indignantly rejected.
First, let the religious question be decided, said the Protestants, and then the details
will adjust themselves. They had robbed no man: the appropriated Church revenues
they had devoted to the religious instruction of the people, to the support of schools,
and the relief of the poor. And as to refusing the protection of the League to those
who were persecuted for righteousness’ sake, they spurned the idea of binding
themselves to so dastardly a policy.[2] Calvin, who was not readily imposed upon, nor
easily satisfied, bears the highest testimony in his letters to the zeal of these men, as
he witnessed it at Frankfort. Sooner than dissolve their League, and abandon
defenceless provinces and towns to the will of the emperor and the Pope, they would
see their cities ploughed as a field, their castles razed, and themselves led to the
scaffold.[3]
The conference assembled at Worms, as appointed, but on the third day came letters
from the emperor dissolving it, and summoning it to meet, with greater solemnity, at
Ratisbon, in January, 1541. [4] The members not arriving in time, the Diet of
Ratisbon opened only in April. Calvin, deputed by the city of Strasburg, went thither,
though he expected little from the conference, mistrusting the sincerity of the Roman
managers, and knowing, perhaps better than any other man, that an impossible task
had been assigned to them when they were required to reconcile essentially
antagonistic creeds. And yet many things seemed to prognosticate a prosperous issue
to this the fourth attempt, within the space of two years, to effect the pacification of
Christendom. First, the position of the emperor’s affairs made it clearly his interest to
be on friendly terms with the princes of the Protestant League. He was raising armies,
expending vast sums, wasting his years and strength, and taxing his genius in toilsome
expeditions and mighty undertakings, and yet the perplexities around his throne were
thickening instead of lessening. Verily, he had no need to court new difficulties.
Charles spoke truth, doubtless, when, by the mouth of Grenville, he opened the Diet
with these words: “When he perceived how religion had torn and rent asunder the
Empire, and given occasion to the Turk to pierce almost into the bowels of Germany,
it had been a great grief to him, and, therefore, for many years past he had, with their
own consents, been essaying ways of pacification.”[5]
The Pope, Paul III., leaned scarcely less than the emperor towards conciliation. In
token of his friendly disposition he sent Gaspar Contarini as his legate to the
conference. A patrician of Venice by birth, Cardinal Contarini was of pure life, of
devout disposition, and of liberal opinions. He had been a member of “The Oratory of
Divine Love,” an association which sought to promote a large reform of Church
67
abuses, and on the important doctrine of justification approximated very closely to
Luther. Not less desirous were the Protestant divines of healing the breach, provided it
could be done without burying the Reformation. When they thought of the sacrifices
which the continuance of the struggle implied the desolations of war, and the blood
that must flow on field and scaffold - they shrunk from the responsibility of hastily
closing the door against any really well-meant attempt at union. At no former moment
had peace seemed so near.
The proceedings began by Grenville presenting to the conference a book, which he
said had received the emperor’s approval, and which he wished them to adopt as the
basis of their discussions. The book consisted of a series of chapters or treatises on the
doctrines, the rites, the Sacraments, the orders, and the constitution and powers of the
Church. The members were to say what in it they agreed with, and what in it they
dissented from.[6] The Pope naturally wished the weighty point of his supremacy to
be first taken in hand and settled; but Contarini, departing from his instructions in this
matter, postponed the question of the Pope’s powers to the end, and gave precedence
to the doctrines of the Christian system. For some time all went smoothly enough. A
very tolerable unanimity was found to exist between the two sides of the assembly on
the doctrines of original sin, free-will, and justification. Calvin was astonished to find
the Romanists conceding so much. “We have retained,” says he, writing to Farel, “all
the substance of the true doctrine. If you consider with what kind of men we have had
to agree, you will acknowledge that much has been accomplished.”[7] As yet, no
cloud appeared in the sky of the conference.
Next came the subject of the Church. The conference was agreed on the constitution
of the Church; as regards its authority it began to be seen that there were two parties
in the assembly. To obviate immediate danger, it was proposed to pass on to other
questions, and leave this one for future settlement.[8]
The Sacraments followed. The Diet was nearing the more critical questions. There
was here some jarring, but the Protestants conceded the ceremonies as things
indifferent, and the conference was able to proceed. At last came the consideration of
the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. “There,” said Calvin, “stood the impassable rock
which barred the way to farther progress.”[9] “I had,” continues Calvin, “to explain in
Latin what were my sentiments. Without fear of offence, I condemned that peculiar
local presence; the act of adoration I declared to be altogether insufferable.”[10]
We now behold the representatives of the Popish and Protestant worlds gathered in
presence of the Roman sphinx - the stupendous mystery of transubstantiation. If they
shall solve the riddle - reconcile the dogma to Scripture, to reason, and to sense - all
will be well; they will have united the two Churches and pacified Europe; but if they
shall fail, there awaits Christendom a continuance of divisions, of strifes, of wars. One
after another comes forward with his solution, in the hope that, like another Oedipus,
he will read the riddle, disarm the monster, and avert from Christendom the untold
calamities with which it is threatened. First come the Protestants. “Philip and Bucer,”
says Calvin, “have drawn up ambiguous and insincere formulas, to try whether they
could satisfy the opposite party by yielding nothing.”[11] He bears his testimony to
their “best intentions,” but expects nothing of their “equivocation.” Next come the
Romanists. They enveloped the whole in a cloud of mystification. The riddle is still
unread; the mystery still stands unsolved, despite the learning, the wit, and the
68
sophistry which have been expended upon it to make it comprehensible; it is as
defiant of Scripture, of reason, and of sense as ever.[12]
At this stage an incident partly tragic and partly grotesque came to diversify the
proceedings of the convention. One day, the veteran controversialist, Dr. Eck, being
worsted by Melancthon in an argument on the Eucharist, went home in a rage, and
drank so deep at supper as to drown his sense of discomfiture and contract a fever at
the same time. His gruff stentorian voice was heard no more in the debates, nor his
tall, broad-shouldered and burly form seen in the conference hall.[13]
Afterwards the questions of private masses, invocation of saints, and the Pope’s
supremacy received a languid discussion, but with no satisfactory re-suits. The skies,
so fair when the conference assembled, were now overcast with heavy clouds. The
promise of peace had failed. The emperor dissolved the Diet, with the promise,
always forthcoming when affairs had got into a dead-lock, that a General Council
would speedily convene, and that should the Pope refuse to call such, he himself
would convoke a Diet of the Empire for the settlement of all the religious differences
of Christendom.[14]
So ended the Diet of Ratisbon. Had it succeeded in uniting the two Churches, the
history of the world would henceforward have been different. Would it have been
better? We answer unhesitatingly, it would have been worse. God’s plans are not only
larger and wiser but more beneficent than the thoughts of man. A union on only such
terms as were then possible would have closed the career of Protestantism; for a halfReformation would have been no Reformation. Would then the Church of Rome, her
doctrines modified, we shall suppose, her worst abuses corrected, and her sway
become more tolerant, have resumed possession of Europe, and pursued her course
unobstructed by rival or opponent? We reply emphatically, it would not. The Popish
champions altogether overlook the forces which were at work in Christendom, when
they lay the misfortunes of their Church at the door of Protestantism. The Church of
Rome was morally bankrupt before the Reformers arose. The nations had lost faith in
her. The pantheistic principles which had been springing up ever since the twelfth
century were fast coming to a head, and but for the moral breakwater which Luther
and Calvin erected, they would by the end of the sixteenth century have broken out
and swept over Europe in all the fury of a destructive revolution. Protestantism did
not awaken, it mitigated the angry feelings of which Rome was the object, and
diverted them into the channel of Scriptural Reformation. The Christendom of that
day was called to make its choice between the teachers of morality and order, such as
Calvin, and the apostles of atheism, with its attendant crimes, revolutions and woes,
such as Castellio and Servetus. Unhappily the Roman Church mistook her friends for
her foes. We would ask, how has it fared with her in those countries which remained
Popish? Is it in lands where the Reformation established itself, or in those where it
was suppressed, that the “Church” has been most exempt from spoliation, and her
priests from violence? and to what shore is it that they flee in those oft-recurring
tempests of revolution that sweep across the Popish world?
The Reformation in its Lutheran form had now culminated. It had planted in the mind
of Christendom the great radical principle of renovation, “salvation through grace;”
but, instead of building upon it an organised Church, to act as a moral breakwater
against the godless principles ready to rush in and fill the void caused by the partial
demolition of Romanism, the Reformation in Germany was passing into political
69
action; it was running to seed. What was needed was a vigorous Church, what was
formed was a political league. A new centre had to be found for the principle of
Protestantism, where, disentangling itself from political alliances, it might grow into a
great purifying and restraining power, and be seen by the world, not simply as a body
of doctrines, but as a new and holy society. While a number of cunning artificers at
Ratisbon are trying to repair the old fabric and keep it from falling, a new building is
rising elsewhere.
70
CHAPTER 14
CALVIN RETURNS TO GENEVA
Had the Diet at Ratisbon succeeded in finding, what both parties in the convention so
sincerely laboured to discover, a basis of agreement, Calvin would not have returned
to Geneva. There would have been no need to seek a new centre for a Reformation
which had run. its course, and was about to disappear from the stage; It was saved,
however, from the entombment which agreement would have given it. The movement
is again to resume its march. Its second and grandest act is about to open, and
accordingly Calvin is on his way back to Geneva.
While living honoured in Strasburg, each day occupied in fruitful labours, interrupted
only by attendances at imperial Diets, the public feeling respecting the Reformer had
been undergoing a great change on the banks of the Leman. The faction of the
Libertines, reinforced by Anabaptists and Papists, grew every day more ungovernable;
Licentiousness and tumult ran riot now that Calvin was gone.[1] The year 1539
passed in the most outrageous saturnalia.[2] The Council, helpless in the face of these
disorders, began to repent of what they had done. The four syndics who had been
mainly active in the banishment of Calvin were now out of the way. One had perished
on the scaffold, charged with the crime of surrendering Genevese territory; another,
accused of sedition, had attempted to escape by his window, but, falling headlong,
broke his neck.
His fellow-citizens, on learning his tragic end, called to mind that he had said
tauntingly to Calvin, “Surely the city-gate was wide enough to let him go out.”[3] The
two remaining syndics, implicated in the same charges, had betaken themselves to
flight. All this happened in the same year and the same month.
It was now 1540. The city registers show the daily rise in the tide of popular feeling
for Calvin’s recall. September 21st: the Council charged Amy Perrin, one of its
members, “to find means, if he could, to bring back Master Calvin.” October 13th: it
was resolved to write a letter “to Monsieur Calvin that he would assist us.” October
19th: the Council of Two Hundred resolved, “in order that the honour and glory of
God may be promoted,” to seek all possible means to have “Master Caulvin as
preacher.” October 20th: it was ordered in the General Council, or Assembly of the
People, “to send to Strasburg to fetch Master Jean Calvinus, who is very learned, to be
minister in this city.”[4] The enthusiasm of the citizens is thus described by an eyewitness, Jacques Bernard: “They all cried out, ‘Calvin, Calvin! we wish Calvin, the
good and learned man, and true minister of Jesus Christ!’”[5]
Three several deputations did Geneva send to entreat the return of the man whom, two
years before, it had chased from its gates with contumely and threats. The same two
cantons, Bern and Zurich, whose approaches in the way of mediation it then repulsed,
were now asked to use their good offices with the magistrates of Strasburg, in order to
overcome their unwillingness to forego Calvin’s services. In addition to the Senate’s
advances, numerous private citizens wrote to the Reformer in urgent terms soliciting
his return. These letters found Calvin already on his way to the Diet at Worms,
whither the deputy of Geneva followed him.[6] The repentant city opens its gates.
Shall he go back?
71
It was a critical moment, not in Calvin’s history only, but in that of Christendom;
though neither Calvin nor any other man could then estimate the momentous issues
that hung upon his decision. The question of going back threw him into great
perplexity. The two years he had already passed in Geneva, with the contradictions,
perils, and insults with which they were filled up, rose vividly before him. If he
returns, shall he not have to endure it all over again? Going back was like lying down
on a bed of torture. The thought, he tells us, filled him with horror. “Who will not
pardon me,” he writes, “if I do not again willingly throw myself into a whirlpool
which I have found so dangerous?”[7] He appeared to himself of all men the most
unfit for a career so stormy as that which awaited him at Geneva. In a sense he judged
correctly. He was naturally shy. His organisation was exquisitely strung. Sensitive and
tender, he recoiled from the low arts and the coarse abuse of rough and unprincipled
opponents. It was sympathy and love that he sought for. But it is exactly on a
constitution like this that it is possible to graft the finest and loftiest courage. Qualities
like these, when found in combination with high conscientiousness and lofty aims, as
they were in Calvin’s case, become changed under discipline, and in fitting
circumstances develop into their opposites. The shrinking delicacy or timidity which
quails before a laugh or a sneer disappears, and a chivalrous boldness comes in its
room, which finds only delight in facing danger and confronting opposition. The
sense of pain is absorbed in the conscious grandeur of the aim, and the sensitive man
stands up in a courage which the whole world can neither bend nor break.
Calvin disburdened his mind to his brethren, telling them with what apprehensions
this call to his former field of labour had filled him, yet that he would obey, should
they deem it his duty to go. They knew his worth, and were reluctant indeed to part
with him; but when they thought on Geneva, situated on the borders of Italy and
France, and offering so many facilities for carrying the light into these countries, they
at once said, “This is your post .of service.” Not yet, however, could Calvin conquer
his aversion. The city on the banks of the Leman was to him a “chamber of torture;”
he shuddered to enter it. Bucer stood forward, and with an adjuration similar to that
which Farel had formerly employed to constrain him to abide in Geneva, he
constrained Calvin to return to it. Bucer bade him beware of the punishment of Jonas
for refusing to go and preach repentance to the Ninevites.[8] This was enough; the die
was cast: mobs might rage, faction might plot, a hundred deaths might await him in
Geneva, he would go nevertheless, since duty called him.
He now began to prepare for his journey. Loaded with many marks of honour by the
magistrates of Strasburg, he bade adieu to that city. A mounted herald, sent from
Geneva, rode before him. He travelled slowly, halting at Neuchatel to compose some
differences which had sprung up in the flock of Farel, and solace himself a little while
in the society of the most loved of all his friends, before crossing the territory of the
Vaud, and resuming his great task. On the 13th of September we behold him entering
the gates of Geneva, his face still pale, but lighted up with his earnest look and eagle
eye. He climbs, amid the reverend gaze of the citizens, the steep and narrow Rue des
Chanoines, and takes up his abode in a house prepared for him beforehand at the head
of that street, with its little garden behind, and a glorious vista of lake and mountains
beyond - the broad blue Leman, with the verdant and woody Jura on this hand, and
the great Alps, in all their snowy magnificence, on that. It has been often asked, was
Calvin insensible to these glories? And it has been answered, he was, seeing he says
not a word about them in his letters. No more does St. Paul in his, though his labours
72
were accomplished amid scenes of classic fame, and physical beauty. The general, in
the heat of action, has no time to note the scenery that may lie around the battle-field.
What to Calvin was Geneva but a battle-field? it was the centre of a great conflict,
which enlarged year after year till it came to be coextensive with Christendom, and
every movement in which Calvin had to superintend and direct. The grandeur of the
natural objects that surrounded him, at times, doubtless fixed his eye and tranquillised
his soul, but with the alternations of hope and fear, sorrow and triumph, filling his
mind as the battle around him flowed or ebbed, he may well be excused if he refused
to sink the Reformer in the painter.
In being sent into exile Calvin was, in fact, sent to school. Every day of his sojourn at
Strasburg his powers were maturing, and his vision enlarging, and when at last he
returns to Geneva he is seen to be fully armed for the great fight that awaits him there.
The study of his character, previous to his expatriation, reveals these defects, which, if
not corrected, might have seriously marred his success. He yearned too strongly for
sympathy - we do not say praise - with his work and his aims. His own delight in what
was true and lofty was so intense that he reckoned too readily on finding the same in
others, and was in the same proportion discouraged when he failed to find it. He must
learn to do the work for the work’s sake, irrespective altogether of censure or
sympathy, save the sympathy of One, the Master even. This first infirmity begat a
second, a guilelessness bordering on simplicity. He thought that he had but to show
himself actuated by upright and high aims in order to disarm opposition and conciliate
friends and fellow-labourers. He did not make sufficient allowance for the shortsightedness, the selfishness, the craft, the cruelty that are in the heart of man. But the
deep wound he received in “the house of his friends” helped to cure him of this
weakness. He knew better than before what was in man. The sharpest injuries he saw
were to come not from the Romanists, but from professed Protestants. He now stood
armed on this side.
But the greatest defect in the character of the Reformer grew out of one of his more
notable excellences. We refer to the intensity and tenacity with which he laid hold on
his object. This was apt to lead to the too exclusive concentration of his powers on the
task or the spot that engaged him for the time. It tended, in short, to isolation. Up to
his first coming to Geneva he had lived only in French circles; the greater world of the
Reformation he had not entered; and had he never made acquaintance with a wider
sphere, there was a danger of his being only the man of Geneva, and giving to a little
State what was meant for Christendom. He must go forth, he must tread German
earth, he must breathe German air, he must survey from this post of observation the
length and breadth of the great movement, at the centre of which is his own
permanent place, and for three successive years must his eye be kept fixed on that
wide field, till what is merely national or denominational has dropped out of view, or
at least assumed its proportional importance, and only what is oecumenical and
eternal remains. Here at Strasburg he will associate not with scholars and burghers
only, but with practical Reformers, with princes, and with the leading minds of many
various nationalities; and thus we find that when a second time he presents himself at
the gates of Geneva, he is no longer the Frenchman simply, he is of no nation because
of all nations. To the clear, sharp-cut, beautiful genius of France he now adds the
robustness of the Teuton. He feels as deeply as ever the necessity of guarding the
purity of the Communion-table, for it is the point from which he is to work outward
for the regeneration of the Church in the first place, and the State in the second, and
73
accordingly his aims are no longer bounded by the limits of Geneva; they stretch wide
around, and the little city becomes the pedestal simply on which he places that
spiritual apparatus by which he is to regenerate Christendom.
Calvin, the stern, the severe, insensible alike to Alpine grandeurs and to female
loveliness, had married while at Strasburg.[9] Idelette de Bure, the woman who had
given her hand to the Reformer, came from Liege, one of the earliest among the cities
of the Netherlands which embraced the Gospel. She was a widow. Her modest yet
courageous deportment as evinced in facing the perils to which the profession of the
Gospel exposed her, her devoted affections and deep-seated piety as shown in
ministering to the sick, and watching tenderly over the two children whom she had
borne to her former husband, Jean Storder, had won the esteem of Calvin.
Many friends from a distance testified their sympathy and joy by attending his
nuptials. But why is not his Idelette de Bure by his side when he re-enters Geneva?
She is to follow, and to be the modest, loving, and noble-minded companion of the
Reformer, during nine of the most laborious and stormy years of his life. Three
horses, a carriage, and a sum of money are sent her by the Senate, to bring her to
Geneva. A piece of cloth was presented to Calvin for a gown,[10] and the pulpit in St.
Peter’s was prepared for the preacher: it was fixed against a massive pillar, and placed
low, that the speaker might be distinctly audible to all.
74
CHAPTER 15
THE ECCLESIASTICAL ORDINANCES
The first act done by Calvin and the Senate and people of Geneva was to bow
themselves in humiliation before the Eternal Sovereign. Only a day or two after the
Reformer’s arrival, the great bell Clemence rung out its deep, far-resounding peal
over city, lake, and champaign. The citizens flocked to the cathedral to hear again the
voice that was dearer to them than ever.
Calvin addressed them, dwelling briefly on those awful events which gave so deep a
solemnity to the passing time. In the East the Turk was overrunning Hungary, and
shedding Christian blood in torrents. Nearer to them the Postilence was ravaging the
cities of Germany and the towns on the Rhine. In France and England their brethren
were falling by the sword of the persecutor. In Barbary, whither he had gone to fight
the Moors, the emperor’s fleet and army were perishing by the tempests of the sky.
The Reformer called on them to see in these mingled events the hand of God,
punishing the nations in his anger. The Sacrament was then dispensed, and the
services of the day were closed with a solemn prayer, in which the little city,
environed on every side by powerful enemies, cast itself upon the arm of the
Almighty.[1]
Without a moment’s delay Calvin set about his great task. Everywhere, over the entire
face of Christendom, moral ruin was at work. The feeble restraints of the Roman
Church were dissolved. The power of the German Reformation was decaying, the
Political element having acquired the predominance. An outburst of pantheistic
doctrines was about to drown Europe in a flood of hideous immoralities and frightful
disorders. What was needed was a great moral power, strong enough to awe the
atheism that was lifting up its portentous head. This was the Herculean labour to
which Calvin was called. He understood it. In his clear, calm judgment, and
constructive skill - in his powers of memory and of logic - in a genius equally fitted
for speculation or for business - in his intellectual vision which extended wide, yet
penetrated deep - in his indomitable patience, inflexible conscientiousness, and
profound submission to the Bible, he was the one man, of all then living, who
possessed the gifts necessary for the work. he would begin by regenerating Geneva,
and from Geneva as a centre there would go forth a regenerating influence over the
face of Christendom. Accordingly, on his first appearance before the Council, and
before he had been many hours within their walls, he demanded the erection of a court
of morals, or ecclesiastical discipline. “Immediately after I had offered my services to
the Senate,” says he, writing to Farel, “I declared that a Church could not hold
together unless a settled government should be agreed on, such as is prescribed to us
in the Word of God, and such as was in use in the ancient Church. I requested that
they would appoint certain of their number who might confer with us on the subject.
Six were then appointed.”[2] The Senate’s consent had, in fact, been given when it
supplicated him to return, for it well knew that he could return not otherwise than as a
Reformer.
Such dispatch did Calvin and his colleagues use in this matter, that the draft of the
ecclesiastical discipline was presented to the Council on the 28th of September. Its
examination was begun and continued till the 27th of October. The project, as
definitely amended, was, on the 9th of November, adopted by the Council of Two
75
Hundred; and on the 20th by the Council-General, or Assembly of the People. These
ecclesiastical ordinances were farther remodelled, and the final vote of the people
took place on the 2nd of January, 1542. “It is,” says Bungener, “from that day that the
Calvinistic Republic legally dates.”[3]
We shall briefly consider this ecclesiastical order and government, - the inner
organisation of the Reformation; - the instrument for the regeneration, first of Geneva,
next of Christendom. Calvin and the Council are seen working together in the framing
of it. The Reformer holds that the State, guiding itself by the light of revelation, can
and ought to make arrangements and laws conducive to the maintenance of the
Church of God on the earth. He at the same time made what provision the
circumstances permitted for the separate and independent working of the Church and
the State, each within its own sphere. His plan of Church order was borrowed
avowedly from the New Testament. He instituted four orders of men for the
instruction and government of the Church - the Pastor, the Doctor, the Presbyter or
Elder, and the Deacon. We have here strictly viewed but two orders - the Presbyter
and the Deacon though we have four names. The Presbyter embraces those who both
preach and govern, as also others who govern but do not preach. By the Deacon is
meant the officer who administered the Church’s financial affairs.
The city clergy, the professors of theology, and the rural pastors formed the body
known as the Venerable Company. The election of pastors was conducted in the
following manner: - When a pulpit fell vacant, the Company united in a deputation to
the Council. In presence of the magistrates the ministerial candidates were subjected
to a severe examination, especially as regarded their ability to expound Holy
Scripture. The magistrates then retired, and the Company, by a majority of votes,
elected one as pastor. The newly-elected, if approved by the Council, was announced
to the congregation from the pulpit next Sunday, and the people were invited to send
in their objections, if they had any, to the magistrates. The silence of the people
confirmed the election, and eight days afterwards the new minister was ordained as
pastor, the moderator of the Company presiding at the ceremony. The triple action of
the government, the people, and the clergy in the election was a sufficient guarantee
against intrigue and favour.[4]
The ecclesiastical authority was wielded by the Consistory, or tribunal of morals. The
Consistory was composed of the ministers of the city and twelve laymen. These
twelve laymen were elected by the Little Council, confirmed by the Great Council,
and finally approved by the people with whom remained the power of objecting to
any or all of them if they saw cause. The Consistory met every Thursday. It
summoned before it those reported as guilty of immoralities. It admonished them,
and, unless they promised amendment, excommunicated them - that is, deposed them
from membership in the Church - and in consequence thereof withheld from them the
Sacraments. The Consistory had no power to compel attendance before it, and no
power to inflict a civil punishment. “It was,” says Ruchat, “a purely ecclesiastical
chamber, possessing no civil jurisdiction whatever, which it left entirely to the
magistrate.”[5] It “gives notice” to the Council, and the Council “sees to it.” In the
infliction of its censures it exercised a rigorous impartiality. It knew nothing of rank
or friendship, “punishing,” says M. Gaberel, “with equal severity the highest
magistrate and the meanest burgess, the millionaire and the peasant.”[6]
76
If the action of the Consistory effected the reformation of the offender, he was
straightway restored to his place in the Church; if he remained incorrigible, the case
came under the cognisance of the civil jurisdiction. The Council summoned him to its
bar, and inflicted punishment - it might be imprisonment, or it might be banishment.
The Spiritual Court, looking at the act as an offence against the ecclesiastical
ordinances, had visited it with an ecclesiastical censure; the Council, looking at it as a
breach of the civil laws, awarded against it a temporal punishment. We ask why this
double character of the same act? Because in Geneva the nation was the Church, and
the ecclesiastical ordinances were also the laws of the State. They had not only been
enacted by the Senate, they had been twice solemnly and unanimously voted by the
people. “The people could not afterwards allege,” says M. Gaberel, “that they were
deceived as to the bearing of the laws they were sanctioning. For several weeks they
could meditate at leisure on the articles proposed; they knew the value of their
decision, and when twice - on the 20th of November, 1541, and again on the 2nd of
January, 1542 - they came to the Cathedral of St. Peter’s, and, after each article, raised
their hands in acceptance of it, the vote was an affair of conscience between God and
themselves, for no human power could impose such an engagement. They were
20,000 citizens, perfectly free, and masters of their own town. The Genevese people
were absolutely sovereign; they knew no other limit to their legislative power than
their own will, and this people voted the ordinances from the first chapter to the last.
They engaged to frequent public worship regularly, to bring up their children in the
fear of the Lord, to renounce all debauchery, all immoral amusements, to maintain
simplicity in their clothing, frugality and order in their dwellings.”[7]
It is asked, is not this discipline the old regime of Rome over again? Do we not here
see an ecclesiastical court investigating and passing sentence, and a civil tribunal
coming in and carrying it out? Is not this what the Inquisition did? There are,
however, essential differences between the two cases. At Rome there was but one
jurisdiction, the Pontifical; at Geneva there were two, the ecclesiastical and the civil.
At Rome simple opinions were punishable; at Geneva overt acts only. At Rome the
code was imposed by authority; at Geneva it was freely voted by the people. If it was
the Inquisition, it was the people who set it up. But the main difference lies here: at
Rome the claim of infallibility put conscience, reason, and law out of court; at Geneva
the supreme authority was the Constitution, which had been approved and sanctioned
by the free conscience of the people.
What was established at Geneva was a theocratic republic. The circumstances made
any other form of government hardly possible. The necessities of the city made it
imperative that in its legislation the moral should predominate; its very existence
depended on this. But even the genius of Calvin could not find means, in so small a
State, to give free expression to his views touching the distinction between things
spiritual and things secular, nor could he prevent the two jurisdictions at times
overlapping and amalgamating. It is strange to us to see blasphemy, unchastity, and
similar acts visited with imprisonment or with banishment; but we are to bear in mind
that the citizens themselves had made abstinence from these vices a condition of
citizenship when they voted the Constitution. They were not only offences against
morality, they were breaches of the social compact which had been freely and
unanimously formed. Those who, while the Constitution existed - and it could not
exist a moment longer than the majority willed - claimed to be permitted these
indulgences, were logically, as well as legally, incurring expatriation. Calvin made
77
this very plain when, on one occasion, he advised the Libertine to withdraw, and build
a city for themselves. Such a city, verily, would have had neither a long nor a tranquil
career.
“The more this legislation has been studied,” remarks M. Bungener, “the more is it
seen to be in advance of all anterior systems of legislation. The form sometimes
surprises us a little by its quaint simplicity, but the grandeur of the whole is not the
less evident to those who seek it, and this was about to manifest itself in the history of
the humble nation to whom this legislation was to give so glorious a place in the
intellectual as well as in the religious world.”
“Neither absorbing nor degrading the Statue,” adds M. Bungener, “the Church
maintained herself at its side, always free, so far as the Reformer had intended her to
be so. This was, indeed, an important, an indispensable element of her influence
abroad. A Church visibly in the power of the magistrates of so small a State would
have been hearkened to by none. But the Church of Geneva had been put into
possession of a free and living individuality. Henceforth it mattered little whether she
was small or great, or whether she was at home under the shelter of a small or mighty
State. She was the Church of Geneva, the heiress of Calvin. None in Europe, friend or
foe, thought of asking more.”[8]
78
CHAPTER 16
THE NEW GENEVA
We have surveyed only the grand outlines. To Geneva for the reinvigoration of the
Reformation, ,see the completeness and efficiency of the scheme let us glance a
moment at the details. which Calvin elaborated and set a-working in First the ministry
was cared for. To guard against the entrance of unworthy and incompetent persons
into its ranks, candidates were subjected to repeated tests and examinations previous
to ordination.
The ministry organised, arrangements were made to secure its efficiency and purity.
The pastors were to meet once a week in conference for mutual correction and
improvement; each in his turn was to expound a passage of Scripture in presence of
the rest, who were to give their opinions on the doctrine delivered in their hearing.
The young were to be kept under religious instruction till qualified by their
knowledge and their age for coming to the Communion-table. Every Friday a sermon
was to be preached in St. Peter’s, which all the citizens were to attend. Once a year
every family was to be visited by a minister and elder, and once every three years a
Presbyterian visitation of all the parishes of the State was to take place. Care was also
taken that the sick and the poor should be regularly visited, and the hospitals attended
to. Never before, nor since perhaps, has a community had the good fortune to be
placed under so complete and thorough a system of moral and spiritual training.
Calvin must first reform Geneva, if through Geneva he would reform Europe.
It was a Herculean task which the Reformer had set himself. He could find no one to
share it with him. Viret and Farel could not be spared from Lausanne and Neuchatel,
and it was on his shoulders alone that the burden rested. The labours which from this
time he underwent were enormous. In addition to his Sunday duties as pastor of the
parish of St. Peter’s, he preached every day of the alternate week. He delivered three
theological lectures weekly. Every Thursday he presided in the Consistory. Every
Friday he gave a public exposition in St. Peter’s. He took his turn with the other
ministers in the visitation of the sick, and other pastoral duties.
When the plague was in Geneva he offered himself for the service of the hospital, but
the Council, deeming his life indispensable to the State, would not hear of his shutting
himself up with the pestilence. Day by day he pursued ]his studies without
intermission. He awoke at five o’clock; his books were brought him and, sitting up in
bed, he dictated to an amanuensis. When the hour came to mount the pulpit, he was
invariably ready; and when he returned home, he resumed, after a short rest, his
literary labours. Nor was this all. From every part of Christendom to which the
Reformation had penetrated - from Poland, Austria, Germany, and Denmark, and
from the nearer lands of Switzerland, France, and England - came letters daily to him.
There were Churches to be organised, theological questions to be solved, differences
to be composed, and exigencies to be met. The Reformer must maturely weigh all
these, and counsel the action to be taken in each. Without diminishing his rate of daily
work, he found time for this immense correspondence.
Calvin had pitched his tent at the centre of a great battle, and his eye ranged over the
whole field. There was not a movement which he did not direct, or a champion for
whose safety he did not care. If anywhere he saw a combatant on the point of being
79
overborne, he hastened to his aid; and if he descried signs of faint-heartedness, he
strove to stimulate afresh the courage of the desponding warrior, and induce him to
resume the battle. The froward he moderated, the timid he emboldened, the unskilful
he instructed, and the erring he called back. If it happened that some champion from
the Roman or from the pantheistic camp stepped forth to defy the armies of
Protestantism, Calvin was ever ready to measure swords with him. The controversy
commonly was short but decisive, and the Reformed Church usually, for some time
after, had rest from all similar attacks. To those on their way to the stake, Calvin
never failed to send greeting and consolation, and the martyrs in their turn waved their
adieus to him from their scaffolds. The words, “We who are about to die, salute thee!”
which greeted the emperor in the Roman circus, were again heard, cried by hundreds
of voices, but in circumstances which gave them an ineffably greater sublimity.
While he watched all that was passing at the remote boundary, he did not for one
moment neglect the centre. He knew that so vast a plan of operations must repose on a
solid basis. Hence his incessant toil to reform the manners, enlarge the knowledge,
and elevate the piety of Geneva. He would make it the dwelling of a righteous nation.
All who might enter its gates should see, and those at a distance should hear, what that
Christianity was which he was seeking to restore to the world, and what mighty and
blessed transformations it was able to work on society. Its enemies branded it as
heresy, and cursed it as the mother of all wickedness. Come, then, was in effect
Calvin’s reply; come and examine for yourselves this heresy at its head-quarters.
Mark the dens of profligacy and crime rooted out, the habits of idleness and beggary
suppressed, the noise of blasphemy and riot extinguished! And with what have they
been replaced? Contemplate those nurseries of art, those schools of letters, those
workshops where industry plies its honest calling, those homes which are the abode of
love, those men of learning rising up to adorn the State, and those patriots ready to
defend it. Blessed heresy that yields such fruits! It was this - a great living proof of the
Gospel’s transforming power - that Calvin had in view to create in all his labours,
whether in his study, or in his chair, or in the pulpit.
And in enlightening Geneva he enlightened Christendom; in instructing his
contemporaries he taught, at the same time, the men of after-ages. Though. his pen
produced much, it sent forth nothing that was not fully ripened. His writings, though
composed in answer to the sudden challenge of some adversary, or to meet an
emergency that had unexpectedly arisen, or to fulfil the call of daily duty, bear traces
neither of haste nor of immaturity; on the contrary, they are solid, terse, ever to the
point, and so fraught with great principles, set forth with lucidity and beauty, that
even at this day, after the lapse of three centuries, during which the works of
numberless authors have sunk into oblivion, they are still widely read, and are acting
powerfully on the mind of Christendom. As an expositor of Scripture, Calvin is still
without a rival. His Commentaries embrace the whole of the Old and New
Testaments, with the exception of the Apocalypse; but though the track is thus vast
which his mind and pen have traversed, what a flood of light has he contrived’ to shed
throughout it all! How penetrating, yet how simple; how finely exegetical, yet how
thoroughly practical; how logical in thought, yet how little systematic in form are his
interpretations of the Holy Oracles! Nor is the unction his Commentary breathes its
least excellence. Its spirit is that of the Bible itself; its fragrance is of heaven, and the
reader’s soul is refreshed with the celestial air that he is inhaling.
80
We now behold Calvin at his post, and we hang with intense interest upon the issue of
his experiment. The question is not merely shall he Protestantise Geneva, but shall he
extricate the Reformation from its dead-lock; restore it to its spiritual path; and,
having developed it into new rigor and soundness in Geneva, plant it out in other
countries. For five years all went smoothly, nothing occurred to obstruct the regular
working of the spiritual and intellectual machinery he had set a-going in this little but
wisely-selected territory. The fruits were appearing. “By the blessing of God on the
labours of Calvin,” says Ruchat, “the Church of Geneva put on a new face.”[1] But
the Libertinism of Geneva had been scorched, not killed.
In 1546, it again lifted up its head, and the struggle was renewed. There were, in fact,
two Genevas: there was the religious and orderly Geneva, composed of the native
disciples of the Gospel, the foreign refugees of Protestantism, and the youth of
various nationalities here training under Calvin to bear the banner of the Reformation
in the face of fire and sword through all parts of Europe; and there was the infidel and
the disorderly Geneva, a small but ominous band, the pioneers in their beliefs and in
their practices of those bodies which afterwards at various intervals filled Popish
Christendom with their swarms, and made themselves a terror by the physical and
moral horrors that marked their career.
“One day, in the large hall of the Cloisters, behind the cathedral, Calvin was giving
his lecture on divinity. Around his chair hundreds were thronging, and amongst them
numbers of future preachers and of future martyrs. Suddenly they hear outside
laughter, cries, and a great clamour: This proceeds from fifteen or twenty Libertines,
who, out of hatred to Calvin, are giving a specimen of their manners, and of what they
call liberty. “Such is the picture of the two Genevas. One of the two must necessarily
perish.”[2]
Among the Libertines, however, there were two classes. There was the class of which
we have just had a specimen, and there was a class of a much less malignant and
dangerous kind. The latter was composed of the old families of Geneva. They loved to
dance, to masquerade, to play.
Hating the moral restraints which the new Constitution imposed upon them, they
raised the cry that the ancient charters had been subverted, and that liberty was in
danger. The other party joined in this cry, but under it they meditated far deeper
designs than their confederates. Their aim was to root out the belief of a God, and so
pull down all the fences of order, and dissolve all the obligations of morality. Both
united against Calvin. In Wittemberg, the battle of Protestantism had been against
Romanism; in Geneva, it was against Romanism and pantheism combined. Two hosts
were now in arms, and their victory would have been equally fatal to Rome and to
Geneva. In fact, what we behold at this crisis is an uprising of old paganism. Its
Protean vices, the austere and the gay, and its multiform creeds, the superstitious and
the pantheistic, are marshalled in one mighty army to overwhelm the Gospel, and
devastate the kingdoms of Europe. Geneva must be the Thermopylae of Christendom.
81
CHAPTER 17
CALVIN’S BATTLES WITH THE LIBERTINES
The battle lasted nine years, and during all that time Calvin “guided Geneva as a
vessel on fire, which burns the captain’s feet, and yet obeys him.”[1] It began in the
following way: - Pierre Ameaux was a maker of playing-cards by trade, and a
member of the Council of Two Hundred. In 1546, his wife was cited before the
Consistory “for several monstrous propositions.” She had given herself up to the
grossest immorality on principle. “It is in this sense,” she said - and in this she spoke
the common sentiments of the spiritual Libertines - “we ought to take the communion
of saints, spoken of in the Apostles’ Creed; for this communion can never be perfect
till all things are common among the faithful - goods, houses, and body.” From the
Consistory, Madame Ameaux passed to the Council, which sent her to prison. Her
husband, from whom she had learned these doctrines, saw himself condemned in his
wife’s condemnation. Besides, he had a grudge at Calvin, who had injured his trade
by forbidding card-playing. One night, when merry at supper, he said to his friends
that “his religion was the true religion, whereas Calvin’s religion was deceit and
tyranny, and that the magistrates who supported him were traitors.”[2] On the words
being reported to the Council, Ameaux was compelled to apologise. Calvin deemed
this a too lenient sentence for an offence that struck at the fundamental settlement of
the State. He demanded that the Council should inflict a more adequate punishment,
or put himself and the other ministers on their trial. The Council, who were resolved
to uphold the moral discipline, cancelled their first sentence, and pronounced a second
and harder one. They adjudged Pierre Ameaux to walk through the streets bareheaded,
carrying a lighted candle, and to make confession of his fault on his knees. The anger
of the Libertines was great. A few days after, knowing that Calvin was in the pulpit,
they rushed into the church and made a disturbance. The Council, feeling that with the
Gospel must fall the republic, set up a gibbet in the Place St. Gervais. The hint was
understood and respected.
In the following year (1547) events of greater consequence occurred. One day a paper
was found affixed to the pulpit of St. Peter’s, full of abuse of the ministers, and
threatening them with death.[3] Suspicion fell on Jacques Gruet, who had been seen
loitering about the cathedral. From a canon in the Roman Church, Gruet had passed to
the ranks of the Libertines, to whose principles his notorious profligacy did honour.
The Council arrested him. A domiciliary visit brought to light another trait of his
character, which until then was unknown, save to his more intimate friends. His shorn
head had not prevented him becoming an infidel, and an infidel of a very malignant
type. Certain writings, his own composition, breathing an envenomed hatred of
Christ, were discovered in his house. A clue, moreover, was there found to a
correspondence tending to deliver up Geneva to the duke. The billet affixed to the
pulpit was forgotten in the graver discoveries to which it led. Gruet confessed his
guilt, and was condemned and beheaded.[4]
The Council maintained its ground in presence of the Libertines. So far from receding
in the way of relaxing the moral code, it advanced in the path of practical reformation.
It closed the taverns; it placed under surveillance certain places in the city where
jovial parties were wont to assemble; it forbade the baptising of infants by the names
of Popish saints, a practice which was understood to be a manifesto against the
Protestant rule; and it prohibited the performance of the Acts of the Apostles, a
82
comedy designed, its patrons alleged, for the edifying of the people, but which, in the
opinion of the Council, profaned the Word of God, and wasted the public money,
“which it were better to expend on the necessities of the poor Protestant refugees with
which Geneva was now beginning to be filled.” These decided measures only
inflamed the rage of the Libertines.[5]
This party now found a leader in an unexpected quarter. We have already mentioned
the name of Amy Perrin. Six years before, he had gone all the way to Strasburg to
prevail on Calvin to resume his place at Geneva. But he was not to remain always by
the side of the Reformer. Perrin was irascible in temper, frivolous in manners, a lover
of fetes and magnificent dresses, and as ambitious of power as he was devoid of the
talents for exercising it. He aped, in Geneva, the part of Caesar at Rome; but Calvin
saw that his vein fitted him for the comic rather than the heroic, and styled him at
times “Caesar the Comedian.” He had been raised, by the voice of the people, to the
chief military command in the republic, he was thus not without the means of aiding
his party, and of damaging his opponents.
The wife of Perrin was the daughter of Francois Favre, who was now closing a life
that had been not unprofitable to the State, with an old age of shameless immorality.
His flagrancies compelled the notice of the Council. His daughter, Madame Perrin,
gave a ball, by way of showing how little she regarded either Consistory or Senate.
This was a transgression of the ecclesiastical ordinances. All concerned in the affair,
including one of the syndics, were summoned before the Consistory. Only two, of
whom Perrin was one, acknowledged their fault; the rest set the Ecclesiastical Court at
open defiance, and, in accordance with the constitutional law and practice, were
summoned before the Council, and ordered to prison.
Madame Perrin was among the incarcerated. Her rage knew no bounds; and what
added to it was the circumstance of her father being imprisoned about the same time
for “debauchery and adultery.” The humiliation of the family of Favre was now
complete, and their indignation was fierce in proportion. They loudly demanded the
abolition of the ecclesiastical laws, and denounced Calvin as bringing back, under
another name, the tyranny of the Roman Church.[6] The captain-general, Perrin, took
the part of his wife and his father-in-law, and used all his influence both in the
Council and in the city against Calvin.
The party increased in numbers and in audacity. They demanded that the Council
should strip the Consistory of the power to excommunicate, and take it into its own
hands. They hoped, no doubt, that in the hands of the Council excommunication
would remain a dead letter, and thus the mainspring of the Calvinistic discipline
would be broken.
Calvin saw how much was at stake, and resolved to continue the battle till he should
fall at his post or be driven from it. With him it was no trial of strength between
himself and the Favre family, which of the two had the greater influence in Geneva,
and which should bow the head before the other. The question to be decided was
whether the Reformation, in its re-invigorated spiritual phase, should be propagated
over Europe or be trampled underfoot by Genevan Libertinism. If it was to spread to
other countries, its purity and rigour must be maintained at all hazards in Geneva, its
centre. It was from this calm elevation that Calvin surveyed the struggle. Writing to
Farel, he says: “I told them that so long as they were in Geneva, they should strive in
83
vain to cast off obedience to the laws; for were there as many diadems in the house of
the Favres as frenzied heads, that that would be no barrier-to the Lord being
superior.”[7]
As Calvin had foretold, so it happened: the law held its course. The Favres had to
digest their humiliation as best they could; the law knew no distinction between them
and the lowest citizen.
The battle, however, was not ended; nay, it grew still fiercer. Geneva became yet
more divided and demoralised. On the 12th December, 1547, we find the pastors
going to the H’tel de Ville “to show that a great deal of insolence, debauchery,
dissoluteness, and hatred was prevalent, to the ruin of the State.” On the 16th
December the Council of Two Hundred met to discuss the measures to be taken. The
contention was so hot, and the threats uttered against the pastors, and especially
against Calvin, were so violent, that their friends ran to beg the ministers not to appear
that day before the Council. Calvin proceeded to the H’tel de Ville alone. An excited
crowd was gathered at the door of the Council-hall. “I cast myself,” says Calvin, “into
the thickest of the crowd. I was pulled to and fro by those who wished to save me
from harm.” But he adds, “The people shrank from harming me as they would from
the murder of a father.”[8] Passing through the crowd, Calvin entered the Councilchamber.
There fresh combats awaited him. On his entrance the cries grew louder, and swords
were unsheathed. He advanced undismayed, stood in the midst of them, and looked
round on the scowling faces and naked swords. All were silent. “I know,” said Calvin,
addressing the members of the Council, “that I am the primary cause of these
divisions and disturbances.” The silence grew yet more profound, and the Reformer
proceeded: “If it is my life you desire, I am ready to die. If it is my banishment you
wish, I shall exile myself. If you desire once more to save Geneva without the Gospel,
you can try.” This challenge brought the Council to their senses. It recalled the
memory of the disorders that had made it necessary to implore the interposition of the
very man they were now seeking to drive away, to save the republic when on the
brink of ruin. The recollection cooled the most irritated spirits present. A republic, of
course, could bestow the title of king upon no one; but all felt that the man before
them, though he had no crown, was in reality a king. He wore his pastor’s cloak right
royally, and looked more august than monarch in his robes of state. His magnanimity
and wisdom procured him a submission that could not have been more instant or more
profound though he had carried sceptre and sword. Peace was established between the
two parties, and Calvin, in prospect of the Communion at the approaching Christmas,
held out his hand to Perrin.[9] The members of Council, holding up their right hands,
signified their desire that past feuds should be buried, and in token of reconciliation a
banquet took place at the town-hall.[10]
But the Reformer cherished no delusive hopes: he knew that between parties so
diametrically divided in principle there could be no lasting truce. The storm had
lulled, but all through the year 1548 it continued to mutter. In the midst of these
tempests, his pen was not for a moment idle. His genius, with concentrated power,
continued to produce and send forth those defences and expositions of the Protestant
system which were so mightily useful in extending the Reformation and building it up
in other lands, and which, year by year, lifted higher into the world’s view, and
invested with a greater glory, that city from which they emanated, although a
84
powerful faction was seeking to expel from it the man who was its strength and glory.
Not a week which might not be Calvin’s last in Geneva. And yet when men spoke of
that valorous little State, growing day by day in renown, it was Calvin of whom they
thought; and when the elite of other countries, the most enlightened and scholarly men
in Europe, some of them of the highest rank, flocked to its gates, it was to see Calvin,
to enjoy Calvin’s society, and to share Calvin’s instructions.
Again the storm darkened. The house of Favre, which had been compelled to “lower
the head” in 1547, once more “lifted up the horn” in 1549. In the end of 1548, Perrin,
Favre’s son-in-law, was restored to his place in the Council, and to his office of
“Captain-General,” of both of which he had been deprived. Restored to office and
honours, he so ingratiated himself with the citizens that early in 1549 he was elected
to the Syndicate, and, contrary to custom, was made First Syndic. This gave fresh
courage to his party. It was now that the tide of popular contumely and derision
around the Reformer rose to the full. The hero of the Libertine populace - “the pillars
of the Tavern,” as Farel called them when addressing the Council during a visit which
he made about this time to Geneva - was, of course, Captain Perrin, the First Syndic.
To ingratiate themselves with Perrin was an easy matter indeed; they had only to do
what already they were but too well disposed to do - indulge their spite against the
Reformer. They hit upon a method of annoyance which, doubtless, they thought very
clever, but which was only very coarse. They called their dogs by the name of Calvin.
At times, to make the insult more stinging, they pronounced the word as Cain.[11]
Those who could not indulge themselves in this ingenious and pleasant pastime, not
being the owners of a mastiff, could nevertheless as they passed the Reformer hiss or
put out the tongue. Such were the affronts to which Calvin at this time was daily
subjected, and that too from men who owed to him the very liberty which they
abused: men whose city he was making illustrious all over Europe, and the streets of
which, the moment he should cease to tread them, would become the scene of
internecine carnage. Verily, it was no easy matter for Calvin to endure all this, and
preserve his consciousness of greatness. To pass from the sublime labours of his study
to such revilings as awaited him out-of-doors was like passing into another sphere of
being. This was a depth of persecution into which Luther had never been called to
descend.
Opposition Luther had encountered, peril he had known, death he had confronted, but
respect had ever waited upon his person, and his sufferings had ever in them an
element of greatness that alleviated their pain. But Calvin, while equally with Luther
an object of hatred to the great, was also the scoff of the base. But he bore all the
fierce threats of men who occupied thrones or stood at the head of armies, and the
ribald jest and hiss of the poor Libertine by his side - with equal equanimity. He
remembered that a Greater had been “the song of the drunkard,” and that he was but
treading a path which Blessed feet had trodden before him. With a sublime grandeur
of soul, which laudation could not enhance, and which the basest contumely could not
degrade, he purged off these foul accretions, maintained the lofty mood of his mind,
and went on in the performance of his mighty task.
It was not possible, one would think, that the sky could grow darker above Calvin;
and yet darker it did become. He whom we see already so sorely stricken is to be yet
more deeply wounded. All these years Idelette de Bure had been by his side. Tender
of heart, magnanimous of soul, loving, confiding, constant, she soothed her husband
85
in his trials, watched by his sick-bed, exercised hospitality to his friends and
numerous visitors, or in her closet prayed, while Calvin was being assailed by the
ribald insults and outrages of the street. The love and entire devotion of his wife was
among his chief joys. But, alas! her frail and delicate health gave way under the
pressure of a protracted illness, and .early in 1549, Idelette de Bure died. “Oh,
glorious resurrection!” were her last words. “God of Abraham and of all our fathers,
not one of the faithful who have hoped in thee, for so many ages, has been
disappointed; I also will hope.”[12] These short sentences were rather ejaculated than
distinctly spoken. “Truly mine is no common source of grief,” said her husband
writing to Viret; “I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life, of one who,
had it been so ordered, would have been not only the willing sharer of my indigence,
but even of my death. During her life she was the faithful helper of my ministry.” But
we drop the curtain, as Calvin himself did, on his great sorrow.
86
CHAPTER 18
CALVIN’S LABOURS FOR UNION
During these years, while an abyss was opening at Geneva, the grave, as it seemed, of
Calvin and his work, the battle was going against the Reformation all over Europe.
Luther was sleeping in the Schlosskirk, and the arms of the emperor were overrunning
Protestant Germany. The theological school at Wittenberg was broken up; the
Schmalkald League was dissolved, and its two chiefs, the captives of Charles, were
being carried about in chains, in the wake of the emperor. The Interim had replaced
the Confession of Augsburg, the Protestant ministers had been driven away, and their
flocks scattered; the free cities had capitulated, and in many of them the mass was
being substituted for the sermon. The noble edifice which the hands of Luther had
reared appeared to be falling into ruins. He who was to become Philip II., but who had
not yet assumed the title, or opened his career of blood, was making a progress
through the towns of Flanders, in company of his father; and the emperor, in the hope
of perpetuating his mighty despotism, was exacting from the cities of the Low
Countries an oath of allegiance to Philip.[1]
In Italy, Paul III., the worthy successor of Borgia, had just died (1549), and his feet,
extended through an iron grating, had been duly kissed by the Roman populace. All
Rome was yet ringing with a terrible book which had just been published, containing
the life of the defunct Pope, when the cardinals assembled in that city to elect his
successor, the ceremony usual on such occasions being carefully observed. Duly
morning by morning each cardinal came from his darkened chamber, with its solitary
taper, and after mass and prayer, wrote the name of the person for whom he gave his
vote upon a bit of paper, and folding it up, dropped it into the silver chalice upon the
crimson-covered table before the altar of the chapel. This was repeated day by day, till
a majority of two-thirds of the votes were recorded in favour of one candidate. Our
own Cardinal Pole was just on the point of being elected, but the suspicion of
Lutheranism which attached to him, caused him the misfortune or the happiness of
missing the tiara. On the 7th of February, 1550, [2] John Maria de Monte, who had
presided in the Council at Trent, and afterwards at Bologna, when the cardinals
crossed the mountains, was elected, and ascended the Papal chair under the title of
Julius III. It was the year of Jubilee, for although, when first instituted by Boniface
VIII., A.D. 1300, that great festival was ordained to be held only on the first year of
each century, the period had since been shortened, and the Jubilee came round once
every half-century. Paul III. had earnestly desired to see that great day of grace, but
the grave closed over him before it came. That festival was reserved to signalize the
opening of his successor’s Pontificate. Rome was full of pilgrims from all countries,
who had come to share in the inestimable benefits which the year of Jubilee brings
with it to the faithful. Two days after his election, Julius III., with the golden hammer
in his hand, proceeded to the golden gate, and broke it open, that the imprisoned flood
of celestial virtues and blessings might freely flow forth and regale the expectant and
rejoicing pilgrims.
The golden hammer, with which the new Pope had broken open the gate - ever a
much-coveted treasure - was this year bestowed on the Bishop of Augsburg. On being
jocularly interrogated by some of his friends what use he meant to make of the gift,
the bishop replied “that he intended to knock the Lutherans on the head with that
hammer.”[3] The other pilgrims carried back to their distant homes, as the record of
87
the cost and toil of their journey, besides the forgiveness of their sins, “bits of the lime
and rubbish” of the demolished gate, to be kept as “precious jewels.”[4]
Francis I. of France had gone to the grave. Literature, war, gallantry, had engaged him
by turns. Today he snubbed the monks, tomorrow he burned the Lutherans. The last
years of his reign were disgraced by the horrible massacre of the Vaudois of
Provence, and embittered by the painful disease, the result of his vices, which carried
him to the grave in his fifty-fifth year. His son, Henry II., brought to the throne, which
he now filled, all the evil qualities of his father, and only some of the good ones. He
was the husband of Catherine de Medici, Pope Clement VII.’s niece, but the wife was
the real sovereign. The Protestant princes of Germany, with Maurice of Saxony at
their head, besought his aid in the war they were then waging with the emperor,
Charles V. He entered into alliance with them, but before setting out for the campaign
he lighted up his capital with the lurid blaze of Lutheran martyr-piles. This was his
way of notifying to the world that if he was the enemy of the emperor, he was
nevertheless the friend of the Pope; and that if he was the confederate of the German
Protestants in arms, he was not a partaker with them in heresy.[5] In the direction of
France, then, there was no clearing of the sky. The air was thick with tempest, which
in coming years was to strew the soil of that land with more terrible wrecks than any
that had as yet disfigured it.
The only quarter of the heaven to which the eye of Calvin could turn with any
pleasure was England. There, during the years we speak of, there was a gleam of
sunshine. Henry VIII. now slept in “dull cold marble.” His “sweet and gracious” son,
Edward VI., succeeded him. The clouds that had overhung the realm during all the
reign of the father, and which let fall, at times, their tempests, and ever and anon
threatened to burst in more furious storms, were dispersed by the benign rule of the
son. With Edward VI. on the throne, the Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector of the
Kingdom, in the Cabinet, and Archbishop Cranmer in the Church, the Reformation of
England was advancing at a rate that promised to give it precedence of both France
and Germany, and make its Church one of the bright stars in the heavens of
Protestantism. The counsel of Calvin was sought by the Protector and the Primate,
and the frankness, as well as fidelity, with which it was given, shows the interest the
Reformer took in the Church of England, and the hopes he rested on its Reformation.
In his letter to Somerset, June, 1548, he expounds his views on the transformation
needed to be wrought on England. First, it must adopt the principle, the only fruitful
one, of justification by faith; secondly, this principle, in order to become fruitful, must
thoroughly permeate the people, which could only be by living and powerful
preaching; thirdly, the Word of God must be the rule as regards what is to be retained
and what abolished, otherwise the Reformation is not the work of God, but the work
of man, and would come to nothing; and fourthly, means must be taken for reducing
morals into harmony with faith. After the fall of the Protector, Calvin corresponded
with the young monarch, who, notwithstanding the loss of his able and faithful
adviser, continued to prosecute vigorously the Reformation of his kingdom. The seed
sown by Wycliffe two centuries before was springing rapidly up, and promised an
abundant harvest. But the clouds were to return after the rain.
The young prince went to his grave. With Mary came a swift and terrible reaction.
The Reformers of the previous reign became the martyrs of the succeeding one, and a
88
night thick with gloom and lurid with fire closed in once more around the realm of
England.
Scotland was awakening. The stakes of Hamilton and Wishart had already lighted up
its skies. But its Reformation was too little advanced, and the country too remote, to
fix the eye of the great Reformer. John Knox had not yet crossed the sea, or entered
the gates of Geneva, to sit at Calvin’s feet, and on his return continue in his native
land the work which Calvin had begun in Geneva. But Scotland was not to be veiled
for ever in the northern mist, and the yet denser shadow of Papal superstition. The
Gospel, that mighty mother of civilization, was to enter it, and lead thither her fair
daughters, letters, science, arts, and liberty. The culture which Rome failed to give it,
Scotland was to receive from Geneva.
We turn for a moment to Spain. Worn with toil and care, and sick of grandeur,
Charles was about to lay down the Empire. Fortune, like a fickle maiden, had deserted
him, so he complained, for younger soldiers. He would show that he could bear the
slight, by turning his back on a world which was turning its back on him. He made
partition of his goods. The magnificent Empire of Spain was to be given to his son
Philip. This man was fated to develop into a Nero. this little finger was to be bigger
than his father’s loins. The astute ambition of Charles, the sanguinary violence of
Henry, the ferocious bigotry of Francis, were all to be forgotten in the monstrous
combination of cruelty, bigotry, and blood which was about to reveal itself to the
world in Philip II. Alas for the Protestantism of Spain! It was to have ten brief years
of flourishing, and when about to “shake with fruit,” and fill the realm of Iberia, it
was to be mowed down by the scythe of the Inquisition, and garnered in the burninggrounds of Valladolid, of Madrid, of Seville, and of other cities.
As the great chief of Protestantism looked from his narrow foot-hold, he beheld
around him a world groaning and travailing in pain to be delivered from the bondage
of the old, and admitted into the liberty of the new. All Christendom was in agony.
The kingdoms were moved; monarchs were falling; there was distress of nations; the
sea and the waves roaring. But Calvin knew that these were but the shaking of those
things which are destined to be removed, in order that those things which can not be
removed may be introduced. If the old was passing away, it was the more necessary to
lay the foundations of that kingdom which was to long outlast the Empire of Charles
and of Francis, and to stretch its sceptre to tribes and nations which theirs had never
reached. It was now that he engaged in attempts to promote the union of the Church.
In the great and blessed work of union Calvin began at home. His first aim was to
unite the Churches of Geneva and Zurich. In prosecuting this endeavour, however, he
studied to frame such a basis of agreement as might afterwards serve as a platform for
a greater union. His aims reached forth to the Lutherans of Germany, whom he
wished to comprehend in visible fellowship with the Churches of France and England,
and so draw together into one body all the Churches of Protestantism. His hopes of
ultimately reaching this grand result were strengthened when he reflected that the
Churches were divided mainly by one point - a misunderstanding touching the Lord’s
Supper. There is a real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, said they all; but they
differed in their answer to the question, In what manner is he present? He is present
bodily, said Luther, who attributed ubiquity or indefinite extension to our Lord’s
humanity. So far from a bodily presence, said Zwingli, the Eucharist is only a
memorial and sign of Christ. No, said Calvin, it is more; it is a seal as well as a sign.
89
So stood the matter; and such, in brief, were the distinctive opinions of the three
clusters of Protestant Churches, when Calvin, rousing himself from his great sorrow
for Idelette, and setting out with Farel in the fine spring days of 1549, arrived in
Zurich to confer with the ministers there - the first step toward the rallying of the
whole protestant Church around its one standard, the Bible; and its centralization in its
one Head, even Christ. A far longer way would the Reformer have been willing to go,
if it could have promoted the cause on which his heart was so deeply set. “I am ready
to cross ten seas,” he wrote to Cranmer, “for the union of the Church.”
Between the views of Calvin and those of Zwingli on the Eucharist there was really,
after all, no essential difference. Zwingli indeed, by way of removing himself to the
farthest distance from Rome, and of getting rid of all her unintelligible mysticism on
that head, had called the Eucharist an “empty sign” - that is, a sign not filled by the
material body of Christ.
But Zwingli’s teaching regarding the Lord’s Supper logically covers all that Calvin
held. It is the “commemoration” of Christ’s death, said Zwingli, but the character and
significance of that “commemoration” are determined by the character and
significance of the event commemorated. Christ’s death was a death endured for
mankind, and is the ground on which God bestows the benefits of the New Covenant.
When, therefore, we commemorate that death, we do an act, not of simple
remembrance, or mere commemoration, but of appropriation. We express by this
commemoration our acceptance of the benefits of the New Covenant, and we receive
the Eucharist as God’s attesting sign or seal of his bestowal of these benefits upon us:
and in so doing we have real communion with Christ, and a real participation in all
the blessings of his death. “Christ,” said Calvin, “unites us with himself in one life.”
These were substantially the explanations put before the Pastors of Zurich by Calvin.
The conference, which was held in the presence of the Civic Council, continued
several days. A formulary was drawn up, known as the Consensus Tigurinis, or
Zurich Confession,[6] on which the Churches of Geneva and Zurich united. This
Confession was afterwards subscribed by all the Churches of Helvetia and of the
Grisons. It was communicated to the Reformed in France, and to Bucer in England,
and in both countries was hailed with joy. The faithful in Switzerland, France, and
England had now been brought to be of one mind on the doctrine of the Eucharist;
their union had been virtually established, and Calvin was comforted after his great
sorrow.[7]
But the greater union Calvin was not to see. The Lutherans of Germany still held
aloof, and the Protestant world still continued to present the appearance as of two
armies. Melancthon, as the result of his interview with the Reformer at Worms
(1540), had come into somewhat close agreement with Calvin on the doctrine of the
Lord’s Supper. The Consensus of Zurich, he acknowledged, shed a yet clearer light on
the question, and had brought him still nearer to the Genevan Reformer.[8]
But the more zealous spirits of the party, such as Flaccius, Osiander, and especially
Westphal, clung to the consubstantiation of Luther with even greater tenacity than
when its great expounder was alive, and both Melancthon and Calvin saw with sorrow
a union, which would have closed a source of weakness in the Protestant ranks, and
made patent to the whole world the real Catholicism of the Reformation, postponed to
a day that has not even yet fully come.
90
We have seen one companion fall by the side of the Reformer, we are now to see
another raised up to fill the vacant place. Within a month after the death of Idelette de
Bure, eight French gentlemen, whom persecution had driven from their native land,
arrived at the gates of Geneva. One of them, in particular, was distinguished by his
noble mien and polished manners. Calvin recognised in him an acquaintance of his
youthful years. This was Theodore Beza, of Vezelay, in Burgundy. Beza had enjoyed
the instructions of Melchior Wolmar, first at Orleans, and next at Bourges, and he had
acquired from him, not only a knowledge of Greek, but some taste for the Reformed
doctrine, which, however, was overlaid for the time by a gay and worldly spirit. Not
unlike to Calvin’s had been his course of study. His first devotion was law; but his
genius inclined him more to the belles lettres. He was a great admirer of the Latin
poets, he read them much, and composed verses in imitation of them. After the
manner of the times he followed his models somewhat too freely, and his Popish
chroniclers have taken occasion, from the lascivious phrases of his verse, to assail his
life, which, however, they have never been able to prove to have been other than pure.
His uncle procured him a living in the Church, and to preserve himself from the vices
into which others had fallen, he contracted a private marriage, in the presence of
Laurence de Normandie and Jean Crespin. An illness, which brought him to the brink
of the grave, awoke his conscience, and now it was that the religious impressions
which his early preceptor had made upon him revived.
Brought back from the grave, Beza renounced Popery, openly avowed his marriage,
quitted France, and setting out for Geneva, presented himself, as we have seen, before
Calvin. He discharged for a short time the office of Greek professor and theological
lecturer at Lausanne. Returning to Geneva, he became from 1552 the right hand of
Calvin, for which his talents, his eloquence, his energy, and his courage admirably
fitted him; and when the great chief of the Reformation was laid in the grave, no
worthier than Beza could be found to succeed him.
Beza did not stand alone by the side of Calvin. A brilliant group was now gathering
round the Reformer, composed of men some of whom were of illustrious birth, others
of distinguished scholarship, or of great talent, or of venerable piety. Among them
may be mentioned Galeaceo Caracciolo, Marquis of Vico, who had forsaken house
and lands, wife and children, for the Gospel’s sake; and Peter Martyr Vermili, whom
Calvin called the “Miracle of Italy.”[9] But the exiles are to be counted, not in
hundreds only, but in thousands, of whom there scarce was one but contributed to
brighten, by his rank, or genius, or learning, that galaxy of glory which was gathering
round Geneva. Each brought his stone to that intellectual and spiritual edifice which
was rising on the shores of the Leman.
Others there were, nearer or farther off, who acknowledged in Calvin their centre, and
who, though parted from him and from one another by mountains and oceans, formed
one society, of which this sublime spirit was the centre. There was Melancthon, and
the group of which he was the chief, and who, although they bore the name of
Lutheran, felt that they were in spirit one with those who were styled Reformed, and
especially with the Catholic-hearted man who stood at their head. There was
Bullinger in Zurich, and the group around him, which embraced, among many others,
Pellicanus, and the fervent, loving Musculus. There was the peace-loving Bucer in
England, and John ‘a Lasco, the learned and accomplished Pole.[10] And among the
men of those days, who looked up to Calvin and sought his counsel, we must likewise
91
rank the young monarch and the venerable Primate of England. There were the
Turretinis of Italy, and the Colignys of France, representative men. There were
Margaret, Queen of Navarre, her great daughter Jeanne d’Albret, and Renee, Duchess
of Ferrara.[11] There were thousands and thousands, humble in station but elevated in
character, spread over all countries and speaking many tongues, but forgetting
diversity of country, of rank, and of speech, in the cause that made them all of one
heart and one mind. We behold in this great multitude a refined, an intellectual, a holy
fellowship, than which there never perhaps existed sublimer on earth. Verily, the man
who formed the centre of this brilliant assemblage, who kept his place in the presence
of so many men so dignified in rank and so powerful in intellect; whom all confessed
to be first, and whom all loved and reverenced as a father, must have been, whatever
his enemies may affirm to the contrary, a man of many sides. He must have possessed
varied as well as great qualities; he must have been large of heart, and catholic in
sentiment and sympathy; he must have been rich in deep, tender, and loving
sensibilities, though these may often have been repressed by labour or veiled by
sorrow, and could be seen only by those who stood near to him; while those who were
farther off could but mark the splendour of those gifts that shone in him as the
Reformer, and of which the world was continually receiving new proofs, in the
expositions and defences of Protestant truth, which he was almost daily sending forth.
But whether near or afar off, all who stood around the Reformer, from the inner-most
to the most distant circle, were ever ready to confess that he was as inflexible in
principle as he was colossal in intellect, that he was as unselfish in aim as he was
grand in conception, and as untiring in patience as he was unconquerable in energy
and courage.
92
CHAPTER 19
SERVETUS COMES TO GENEVA AND IS ARRESTED
We now come within the shadow of a great tragedy. But the horror which the act we
are about to narrate awakens is, in truth, a homage to Protestantism. If a deed which
not only called forth no condemnation from the age in which it was done, a few
personal enemies of Calvin excepted, but which, on the contrary, was pronounced by
the best and most enlightened men then living to be just and necessary, awakens our
abhorrence - that abhorrence is, in fact, the measure of our advance in toleration since
the sixteenth century. But it is Protestantism that we have to thank for that advance.
It is the melancholy and tragic story of Servetus which we are now to record. Michael
Servetus [1] was a Spaniard, born in the same year as Calvin, 1509. Nature had
endowed him with a lively but fantastic genius, an active but illogical mind, an
inordinate ambition, and a defective judgment.[2] He studied with characteristic
versatility law, divinity, physic, and some have said astrology. After a short but
distinguished career as a lecturer on the physical sciences in Paris,[3] he ultimately
established himself at Vienne, in Dauphine, as a medical practitioner.[4] In this
profession he discovered superior skill, and in his first work, On the Errors of the
Trinity (1531), he anticipated the great discovery of our own Harvey of the circulation
of the blood.[5] His mind, speculative, daring, lawless, of the scholastic rather than
the Reformation type, followed its bent, which was ethical, not physical.
He spent fully twenty years of his life in wandering up and down in Christendom,
visiting Germany, Italy, Switzerland, venting his fancies and reveries, unsettling the
minds of men, and offending every one he came in contact with by his pride, selfsufficiency, and dissimulation.[6] He believed that he possessed the power, and had
received a commission, to remodel all knowledge, and establish the world on a new
basis. The more fundamental doctrines of Christianity became the object of his settled
dislike, and his most virulent attack. But it was against the doctrine of the Trinity
mainly that his shafts were levelled. Romanism he had renounced in his youth, but
neither did the Reformation satisfy his grand ideal.
Christianity, he held, had been lost at an early age, if indeed it ever had been fully
promulgated to the world. Servetus undertook to restore and re-institute it.[7] About
the year 1546 he wrote to Calvin from Vienne, to the effect that the Reformer had
stopped too soon, that he had preached as yet only a half-Reformation; and modestly
offered to initiate him into his new system, and assign him the post of leader in that
great movement by which mankind were to be led into a grander domain of truth. He
accompanied his letter with a volume in MS., in which Calvin should see, he said,
“stupendous and unheard-of things.”[8] The unhappy man had virtually arrived at
pantheism, the final goal of all who in these high matters forsake the path of Divine
revelation.
Calvin saw in the “stupendous things” of Servetus only stupendous follies. Writing to
Farel, 13th February, 1546, the Reformer said: “Servetus lately wrote to me, and
coupled with his letter a long volume of his delirious fancies, with the thrasonical
boast that I should see something astonishing and unheard-of. He takes it upon him to
come hither, if it is agreeable to me. But I am unwilling to pledge my word for his
93
safety, for if he shall come, I will never permit him to depart alive, provided my
authority be of any avail.”[9]
The eye of Calvin saw that the creed of Servetus was essential pantheism. He knew
too that such a creed struck at the whole settlement of Church and State in Geneva,
and would sweep away the basis on which had been placed the republic. Further, the
Reformer foresaw that if Servetus should come to Geneva, and attempt propagating
his doctrine, he would be placed under the painful necessity of choosing between a
pantheistic and a theocratic republic, between Servetus and the Reformation. Sharing
in the universal opinion of his age, that heresy is to be punished with the sword of the
magistrate, and deeming this heresy to be, as indeed it was, subversive not only of the
religious belief, but also the civil order of Geneva, Calvin did not hesitate to avow his
preference for the Protestant over the pantheistic republic, and declared that should
Servetus come to Geneva, he would use his influence that he should “not depart
alive.”
These words from any pen would fill us with horror, but coming, as they do, from the
pen of Calvin, they inspire us with a double horror. And yet the truth is that we know
of no Reformer of that age, not even Melancthon himself, who would not, in Calvin’s
position, most probably have written them:[10] Again we must repeat, they caused no
horror to the age in which they were written; nay, they were the verdict of that age on
the case of Servetus; and if it is impossible that ours could utter such a verdict, or the
Protestant world of our day repeat the crime of the Protestant world of the sixteenth
century, we see in this one of the proudest of the triumphs of that Protestantism which
was then struggling into existence against the mighty opposing forces of Romanism
on the one hand and of pantheism on the other.
In 1552, Servetus published clandestinely at Vienne the MS. volume which he had
sent to Calvin in 1546. It bore the title of Restitutio Christianismi, or “Christianity
Restored.” This led to his apprehension by the authorities of Vienne, where he was
tried by the Inquisition. He managed to give his judges the slip, however, and was
condemned in absence to be “burned alive, at a slow fire, till his body be reduced to a
cinder.” The award of the court was carried out by the substitution of the effigy of
Servetus for Servetus himself.[11] Escaping from Vienne he came, of all places, to
Geneva! “If ever poor fanatic thrust himself into the flames,” says Coleridge, “it was
Servetus.”
“I know not what to say of him,” exclaimed Calvin in astonishment, “except that he
must have been seized with a fatal madness to precipitate himself upon destruction.”
He arrived in the middle of July, and took up his abode at the “Auberge de la Rose,”
near the lake.
Calvin had not induced Servetus to come to Geneva; he had in fact, by refusing him a
safe-conduct, warned him off the territory of the republic; nevertheless, now that he
was come, he did what the constitutional laws of Geneva required of him; - he
reported his presence in the city to the Council, and demanded his apprehension.[12]
Servetus was committed to prison on the 13th of August. The law required the accuser
to go to prison with the accused till the charge should be so far substantiated as to
warrant its being taken up by the public prosecutor. Nicholas de la Fontaine, a young
student, and secretary to the Reformer, entered himself as accuser.[13] The articles of
94
accusation, extracted from the writings of Servetus, were drawn up by Calvin, and
presented next day to the tribunal.
Fontaine was unequal to the task of confronting so subtle and eloquent an opponent as
Servetus. The Council saw this, and at its second meeting all the ministers were
requested to appear. Calvin now at length stood face to face with his adversary. The
Reformer’s severe logic soon unmasked the real opinions of the man, and forced him
to admit the frightful conclusions to which they led; but if he put forth all his power in
arguing with Servetus, it was not to procure a conviction, but a recantation, and save
the unhappy man from the flames. “No great danger hung over him,” he declared, “if
he could possibly have been brought to his senses.”[14] “Would,” he sorrowfully
exclaimed at a later period - “Would that we could have obtained a recantation from
Servetus, as we did from Gentilis!”[15]
It must be acknowledged that Servetus on his trial, both at Vienne and Geneva,
showed neither courage nor truthfulness. At the former place he behaved badly
indeed. He disowned his books, denied his handwriting, uttered repeatedly falsehoods
on oath, and professed himself a son of his “holy mother the Church.” Swollen with
insolence and venting defiance while at liberty, he proved a very craven before the
Inquisition. How different from the noble sincerity and courage of the martyrs of
Protestantism, who at that very time were expiring amid the flames at Lyons! His
behaviour before the Council at Geneva was characterised by alternate insolence and
cowardice. When confronted only with Nicholas de la Fontaine, he professed that he
had not intended to blaspheme, and that he was ready to recant.[16] When Calvin was
introduced, he broke into a tempest of rage, denounced the Reformer as his personal
enemy, again and again called him a liar, and styled him a corrupter of the Word of
God, a foe to Christ, a sorcerer, “Simon Magus.” This coming after twenty years’
vituperation and abuse, to which Calvin’s reply had been a dignified silence, was
more than the Reformer could bear, and he became heated in his turn and, as he
himself said to Farel, “answered him as he deserved.”
The scene revealed the man to his judges. The blasphemies which he avowed, and not
less the haughtiness with which he defended himself, shocked and revolted them. The
Trinity he styled “a three-headed Cerberus,”[17] a hell-hound.” Some of the
suppositions he made to discredit the Incarnation were simply indecent, and we pass
them by. “If the angels,” he said, “were to take the body of asses, you must allow they
would be asses, and would die in their asses’ skins. So too you must allow that, on
your supposition being right, God himself might become an ass, and the Holy Spirit a
mule. Can we be surprised if the Turks think us more ridiculous than mules and
asses?” Calvin truly divined the deeper error beneath these - the denial of a personal
God - that is, of God. “His frenzy was such,” says the Reformer, writing to Farel,[18]
“that he did not hesitate to say that the Divinity dwells even in devils. The Godhead is
essentially communicated to them as it is to wood and to stones.” “What, unhappy
man,” replied Calvin, “if any one treading upon this floor should say to you that he
was treading your God under his feet, would you not be scandalised at such an
assertion?” He answered, “I, on the contrary, do not doubt but that this footstool, or
anything else which you may point out, is the substance of God.” When it was again
objected to him, “Then will the devil actually be God,” he answered with a peal of
laughter, “And can you doubt it?”
95
We have narrated in former chapters the war now waging between Calvin and the
Council of Geneva. The First Syndic, Perrin, was the Reformer’s mortal enemy. Other
members of the Council, less influential, were equally the determined opponents of
the Reformer, and were labouring for his overthrow. It was, in a word, the crisis of
Calvin’s power in Geneva - that is, of all the Reformed laws and institutions of the
republic. M. Rilliet of Geneva, in his Life and Trial of Servetus,[19] has conjectured
that what tempted Servetus to enter Geneva at that time was his knowledge of the
state of Parties there, and the hope of replacing Calvin, then in daily danger of
banishment from the city. Be this as it may, the fact is undoubted that the Libertines
perceived the advantage they might derive by playing Servetus off against the
Reformer; and Servetus, on the other hand, was aware of the advantage that might
accrue to him from strengthening the Libertines against Calvin. As the battle went
with Calvin, as the Libertines seemed now to prevail against him, and now to fall
before him, Servetus was contemptuous and defiant, or timid and craven. But the tacit
union of the two helped to bring on the ruin of both.
The patronage of the pantheist by the Libertines wrought ill for Servetus in the end,
by opening the eyes of the Council to the real issues at stake in the trial. The acquittal
of Servetus, they saw, meant the expulsion of Calvin, and the triumph of the
Libertines. This put the personal interference of the Reformer in the matter out of
court, even if his influence had not at that moment been at zero. The magistrates felt
that it was a question of life and death for the republic, and that they must decide it
irrespective altogether of the wishes of Calvin, and on the high grounds of the
interests of the State.[20]
96
CHAPTER 20
CALVIN’S VICTORY OVER THE LIBERTINES
Leaving Servetus in prison, let us repair to another arena of combat. It is another, and
yet the same, for the affair of Servetus has entered the sphere of Genevan politics, and
awakened into fresh intensity the slumbering conflict between the two parties that
divide the republic. Perrin was labouring to undermine, step by step, the power of
Calvin. The pastors had been expelled front the Council-General - the assembly of the
whole people. There followed a more direct attack upon the ecclesiastical authority. It
was proposed to transfer the power of excommunication from the Consistory to the
Senate. This was to strike a fatal blow at the principle on which Calvin had based the
Reformation of the State. Should this principle be overturned, his work in Geneva
would be at an end; and he might leave it the next hour, so far as any good purpose
was to be served by remaining in it. The Consistory stripped of all independent
jurisdictive power, moral order would fall, and those halcyon days would return when
men could go to the tavern at all hours of the day and night, drink as deep as they had
a mind, and disport themselves in dances like those in which the pagans of old
honoured the god Bacchus.
About a year and a half before this, Philip Bertheliot had been debarred the
Communion-table by the Consistory. Philip was the son of that Berthelier who, in
1521, had spilt his blood for the liberty of the Fatherland. As the father had ennobled
the State by his virtues, the son thought he had a right to disgrace it with his vices.
“He was,” says Bayle, “a bad liver.” He submitted quietly to the excommunication of
the Consistory for a year and a half; but now, deeming the moment opportune,
inasmuch as the tide was running against the Reformer and his policy, he appeared
before the Council and demanded that it should annul the sentence of the Spiritual
Court, and so restore him to communion with the Church. The Reformer hastened to
the Council, and warned it of the fatal consequences of complying with Berthelier’s
request, he urged strongly that the edicts of the republic gave the Council no power
concerning excommunication, and that to bind and loose ecclesiastically was to effect
a revolution. The Reformer’s remonstrance was disregarded. The Council released
Berthelier from the spiritual sentence, and opened his way to the Communion-table.
The axe was laid at the root of the ecclesiastical discipline, and the days of the
Genevan Republic were, to all appearance, numbered.
From the council-chamber, where the fatal measure in which the Libertines saw the
approaching downfall of the spiritual authority had been passed, Calvin hurried to the
prison, where he and his colleagues were to be confronted with Servetus. This day
(1st September, 1553) it was resolved by the Council that the oral debates between the
prisoner and the pastors should be dropped, and that the discussion should
henceforward be carried on in writing. This change was supported by Perrin and
Berthelier, who were there, flushed with the victory of the morning. The proposal
made in the interests of Servetus,[1] who was supposed to be more eloquent with his
pen than with his voice, was adopted, and it brought with it a marked change in his
demeanour, which Rilliet thus describes: “What demonstrates with the clearest
evidence the hope which the prisoner placed in the power of his protectors, is the
language which from that time he adopted, and the open, furious, mortal war which he
waged against the Reformer, now become the object of his direct attacks. Servetus
threw himself, with all the ardour of a man well-nigh sure of victory, into a path
97
where, by his own confession, he wished to pursue his opponent, ‘even till the cause
be terminated by the death of him or me.’”
At the same meeting of Council,[2] Calvin was ordered to draw up anew articles of
indictment from the works of Servetus, in the form of plain statements, without any
reasoning for or against. The crisis which had arisen in the matter of the ecclesiastical
discipline might well, one should think, have engrossed all the Reformer’s thoughts,
but he gave himself with his might to this new labour. He reproduced from the works
of the prisoner thirty-eight propositions, and appending neither note nor comment,
and giving simply references to the text, he handed them to the Council. This done, he
turned his thoughts to the graver matter that weighed upon him. The resolution of the
Council touching excommunication was simply a breaking into pieces of the lever
with which he hoped to elevate the republic. The Reformer must fight two battles at
the same time.
Time pressed. The day after the morrow was the first Sunday of September, when,
according to a custom universal in the French Reformed churches, the Communion
was to be celebrated [3] and, unless the edict were revoked, Berthelier would then
present himself at the sacred table with the warrant of the Council in his hand. The
Reformer, without a moment’s delay, assembled all the pastors, alike of town and
country, and putting himself at their head, proceeded to the Great Council. He
showed, with characteristic energy, the brink to which the decision of the Little
Council had brought the republic; that that decision was a manifest violation of both
the laws of the State and the rules of Scripture; and that if persisted in it would sweep
away all that had been done during the past ten years for the reformation of manners,
and render hopeless all efforts in the future. In short, it was a revolution. The whole
people, he said, had with uplifted hands adopted the edict establishing the spiritual
power in the spiritual court, and “he would die rather than tolerate, contrary to his
conscience, an excommunicated man at the sacred table.”[4] In this protest the pastors
to a man joined, all declaring that rather than suffer the contemplated profanation they
would “lay down their offices and leave their churches.”[5] The Council answered
that it “changed nothing in its decree.”[6] In taking into its own hands the spiritual
authority, the Council, it might be unwittingly, assumed the right of trying and
adjudging Servetus. It said to the Consistory, Stand aside; you are dissolved as a court
having jurisdiction; we assume the function and responsibility of giving judgment on
all persons and causes, civil and spiritual.
To Perrin and the Libertines victory was following on victory. The coming day, they
hoped, would crown this series of successes. Whichever way Calvin might turn he
would, they were sure, encounter defeat. If he should obey the edict of the Council, he
would be disgraced before the people; if he should disobey it, he would rebel against
the magistrate: either way his power was at an end. They had not yet taken the true
measure of the Reformer; or rather, they had not yet learned how much better is a
little wisdom than great cunning. By the simple strategy of going right forward, the
Reformer broke all the toils the Libertines had woven round him, and swept away
alike the victories they had already won and those which they made themselves sure
of winning in the future.
Sunday morning, the 3rd of September, dawned. No more eventful day had for
centuries risen over Geneva, or indeed over Christendom. This day it was to be seen
whether Protestantism, which had retreated within its last stronghold, would recruit:
98
its powers and reorganize its forces, and from hence go forth to reconquer
Christendom, or whether it would relinquish the battle as beyond its strength. Twice
already the great Protestant movement, after giving promise of emancipating the
world, had failed. First the Albigensian revival, next the Bohemian uprising,
overborne by violence, had disappointed the hopes they had inspired. Was this third
movement, which had come nearer the goal than either of the two preceding ones,
after all to fall short of it, and leave the world still under the dominion of the
darkness? The moment was the most critical that had occurred since Luther’s
appearance at the Diet of Worms. In Germany, the Reformed phalanx was
demoralized, thanks to the sword and yet more to the Interim of Charles. France,
under Henry II., was blazing with martyr-piles. With Mary, in England, had come a
fiercer tempest of persecution than that country had ever before known. Where now,
alas! we hear Calvin pathetically exclaim, where now are Cranmer, and Ridley, and
John a Lasco, and the hundreds of others in England which the Reformation
numbered aforetime amongst its children? Some of them, leaving their bodies to the
flames, had mounted on high, and were now living with God. Others, crossing seas
and mountains, had found a home in foreign lands. On every side, up to the limits of
the Genevan territory, the Reformation was pursued by the tyrant and the inquisitor.
And even here, if the sword was still restrained, new and hideous foes had risen to
assail the Gospel. The abyss of Atheistic Pantheism had suddenly opened, and a
monstrous birth had come up out of it, which sought to strangle the infant
Reformation, where the Hydra sought to strangle the infant Hercules - in its cradle.
Such were the portents that deformed the time.
The customary hour of public worship was now come. The great bell Clemence had
tolled out its summons. The throng of worshippers on their way to the cathedral had
rolled past, and now the streets, which had resounded with their tread, were empty
and silent. Over city, plain, and lake there brooded a deep stillness. It was around the
pulpit of St. Peter’s, and the man with pale face, commanding eye, and kingly brow
who occupied it, that the heart of Geneva palpitated. The church was filled with an
uneasy crowd. On the benches of the Consistory sat, unmoved, the pastors and elders,
resolved to bear the greatest violence rather than not do their duty. A confused noise
was heard within the temple. The congregation opened with difficulty, and a
numerous band of men, of all ranks, their hands upon their sword-hilts, forced their
way in presence of the holy table. The elite of the Libertines had decided to
communicate. Berthelier did not appear as yet. He reserved himself till the last
moment.[7]
Calvin, calm as ever, rose to begin the service. He could not but see the group of
Libertines in the vast congregation before him, but he seemed as if he saw them not.
He preached on the state of mind with which the Lord’s Supper ought to be received.
At the close, raising his voice, he said.[8] “As for me, so long as God shall leave me
here, since he hath given me fortitude, and I have received it from him, I will employ
it, whatever betide; and I will guide myself by my Master’s rule, which is to me clear
and well known. As we are now about to receive the Holy Supper of our Lord Jesus
Christ, if any one who has been debarred by the Consistory shall approach this table,
though it should cost my life, I will show myself such as I ought to be.”[9]
When the liturgies were concluded, Calvin came down from the pulpit and took his
stand before the table. Lifting up the white napkin he displayed the symbols of
99
Christ’s body and blood, the food destined for believing souls. Having blessed the
bread and wine, he was about to distribute them to the congregation. At that moment
there was seen a movement among the Libertines as if they would seize the bread and
the cup. The Reformer, covering the sacred symbols with his hands, exclaimed in a
voice that rang through the edifice, “These hands you may crush; these arms you may
lop off; my life you may take; my blood is yours, you may shed it; but you shall never
force me to give holy things to the profane, and dishonour the table of my God.”[10]
These words broke like a thunder-peal over the Libertines. As if an invisible power
had flung back the ungodly host, they slunk away abashed, the congregation opening
a passage for their retreat.[11] A deep calm succeeded; 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.”[12]
Than the transaction we have just narrated, we know nothing more truly sublime in
the whole history of the Reformation, that epoch of heroic men and of grand events.
The only thing we can compare with it is Luther’s appearance at the Diet of Worms.
If we abstract the dramatic accompaniments of the latter scene - the gorgeous hall; the
majesty of the emperor; the blaze of princely and knightly rank gathered round him;
the glitter of stars and decorations; the men-at-arms; the lackeys and other attendants and look only at the principle at stake, and the wide and lasting good achieved by the
prompt vindication of that principle, the act of Calvin in the Cathedral of St. Peter’s,
in 1553, stands side by side, its equal in spiritual sublimity and heroism, with the act
of Luther in the Hall of Worms, in 1521. “I can not,” said Luther. “I will not,” said
Calvin. The one repelled the tyrant, the other flung back the mob; the one stemmed
the haughtiness of power, the other bridled the raging fury of ungodliness; in both the
danger was equal, in both the faith and fortitude were equal, and each saved the
Reformation at a great crisis.
These two acts, Luther’s at Worms and Calvin’s in St. Peter’s, were in fact two
beacon-lights kindled by providence for the instruction of Europe. They were hung
out at the opening of a new epoch, to enable Christendom to pilot itself past two
tremendous dangers that lay right in its course. The one of these dangers was only
beginning to be visible. The conflict waged in St. Peter’s on Sunday, the 3rd of
September, 1553, showed how that danger was to be avoided. A Protestant Church,
scripturally constituted, and faithfully governed, was the only possible breakwater
against that lawless pantheism which was even then lifting up its head and threatening
society with ruin. Such was the lesson taught by the heroic act in St. Peter’s. Calvin
was the first man against whom the foul and furious tide of communism dashed itself;
it broke against the pulpit of St. Peter’s before it precipitated itself upon the throne of
France.
It has since with swelling and triumphant crest overwhelmed parliaments and
dynasties, laid prostrate thrones and devastated kingdoms; but in contemplating these
dismal tragedies it becomes us to call to mind that the Reformer of Geneva confronted
this communism 300 years ago, that he confronted it single-handed, and conquered it.
Had the principles of Protestantism been rooted and grounded in every parish of
France, yielding the same spiritual fruits as they did at Geneva, how different would
have been the history of a people to whom nature has given a genius so manifold that
it would have shone equally in the beauty of their arts and in the grace and brilliancy
of their literature; in the valour of their arms, and the equity of their jurisprudence; in
100
the purity of their homes, and in the freedom and stability of their public institutions.
But continuing under the malign power of a corrupted and a corrupting faith, this race,
so richly endowed, has had its great qualities transformed into headlong passions
which have entailed upon country and throne three centuries of calamities and woes.
101
CHAPTER 21
APPREHENSION AND TRIAL OF SERVETUS
It seemed, indeed, a small matter whether Calvin should give the Sacrament to
Berthelier or withhold it. But the question in another form, as Calvin clearly saw, was
whether he should maintain the Reformation or abandon it. The moment he should put
the consecrated elements into the hands of the Libertine, that moment he would lay
the spiritual prerogative at the feet of the civil power, and Geneva would fall as the
bulwark of Protestantism. To Berthelier, therefore, with the edict of the Council in his
hand, and his Libertine hordes at his back, Calvin said, “No”. It was the “Here I stand,
I can not do otherwise. So help me, God,” repeated over again, at a moment equally
critical, and in the face of a danger equally great.
The Reformer had escaped the greater danger, even death, which the Libertines hinted
would be the penalty of refusal, but exile still hung over him. In the evening of the
same Sunday he ascended the pulpit, to take farewell of the flock from which he
expected the coming day would see him parted probably for ever. He chose as the
subject of his discourse Paul’s farewell address to the elders of the Church of
Ephesus, and the scene witnessed that night on the banks of the Leman was almost as
touching as that enacted fifteen centuries before on the shores of the Aegean.[1]
Closing his sermon and spreading out his hands over his loving flock, for the last time
as he believed, he said, “I commend you to God and to the word of his grace.” The
words were mingled with the sobs and tears of those to whom they were spoken.
But no order of banishment came on the morrow, though he waited hour after hour for
it. The Reformer perceived that so far the victory remained with him. Left
undisturbed, he turned his thoughts to the other matter which was then engrossing
him, for he was grappling with two foes at once. We shall now turn with him to this,
in every view of it, sad affair.
In order to an accurate idea of the trial, and of the various interests that combined to
guide it to its deplorable issue, we must briefly review the steps already taken. On the
13th of August, Calvin, having learned that Servetus was in Geneva, demanded his
arrest. But Genevese law required the accuser to go to prison along with the accused
till he had shown reasonable grounds for his accusation. Nicholas de la Fontaine, the
secretary of Calvin, gave himself up in the stead of the Reformer. Next day a
complaint in thirty-eight articles, drawn up, as we have said, by Calvin, was presented
against Servetus. On the morrow the Council assembled in the Criminal Audience
Chamber in the prison, and Servetus, having been interrogated on the articles,
demanded a public disputation, promising to confute Calvin from Scripture and the
Fathers. The prisoner further urged that it did not become a civil court to adjudicate
on such matters. Here was a door opened for the Council to escape responsibility, had
it chosen.
“But,” says Rilliet, “the magistrates refused to entertain the proposal, though Calvin
for his part agreed, and protested that, as far as regarded him, ‘there was nothing that
he more desired than to plead such a cause in the temple before all the people.’” Why,
we ask, this refusal on the part of the magistrates? Rilliet answers, “The Council
feared, no doubt, that it would thus dispossess itself of the cognisance of an affair
which stood connected with the prerogatives of which it had recently appeared so
102
jealous;”[2] that is, the Council was then struggling to shut out the Consistory, and to
secure to itself the spiritual as well as the civil government of Geneva.
The preliminary examination of Servetus ended, the Council, having regard to “his
replies, “found that the charges were true, and accordingly Nicholas de la Fontaine
was discharged from prison, under obligation to appear as often as he might be called,
and to prosecute his case. The Council, in coming to the conclusion that Servetus was
guilty, appear to have been influenced less by his opinions on the Trinity than by his
views on baptism. The frightful excesses of the Anabaptists in Germany and
Switzerland, which were fresh in their memory, made the Council, doubtless, view
this as the most dangerous part of his creed.
Tomorrow (16th August) when the Council assembled to prosecute the affair, two
new parties appeared on the arena. These were Philibert Berthelier, the Libertine
opponent of Calvin, and M. Germain Colladon, a Protestant refugee, and a man
learned in the law. Colladon was associated with Fontaine in the defence and
prosecution. These two - Berthelier and Colladon, were representatives of the two
parties into which Geneva was divided, and their appearance indicated that the affair
was tending to wider issues than any personal to Servetus; in short, it was becoming
the battle-ground on which the question was to be determined whether Libertine
Pantheism or the Protestant faith should hold possession of Geneva. Such is the
inference of Rilliet, who says: “Each of the antagonists saw behind the proceedings
carried on in the bishop’s palace, the interest of the parties who disputed for
Geneva.”[3]
It appears from the minutes that, at this meeting of Council, Berthelier undertook the
defence of Servetus, and strongly argued in favour of his peculiar doctrines as well as
of himself; Colladon attacked with equal ardour both the errors and their author; the
violence of the debate extended itself to the Council, and the sitting, which was a
stormy one, was abruptly terminated.[4]
This scene brought forward a more powerful man than any who had hitherto appeared
in the prosecution. Berthelier was at that moment under excommunication by the
Consistory, and he had a petition lying on the table of the Council to have the
sentence of the spiritual court cancelled. It was thus tolerably plain that his
championship of Servetus was inspired not so much by the wish to defend the
prisoner, as by his desire to overthrow the Consistory. “Calvin felt,” says Rilliet, “that
the moment had arrived for him to appear, and boldly to resist the hostilities against
himself, of which Servetus was about to become the occasion,”[5] if he would not see
his whole work in Geneva swept away; accordingly the very next day he declared that
he would appear as accuser. “The Reformer was now invited by the Council to assist,
‘in order that his errors might be better demonstrated,’ and to have ‘whomsoever he
chose with him’ at the examinations of the prisoner.’”[6] At the first meeting after
this, at which Calvin was present, a sharp debate took place between him and
Servetus.
The issue was that the Council found that the charges contained in the indictment
were proven from the books given in, in evidence, and the prisoner’s own
confessions.[7] Fontaine had previously been discharged from prison; now he was
released from his obligation to prosecute, and the affair was taken entirely into the
hands of the Attorney-General.[8]
103
The second act of the trial opened on the 21st of August. Their Excellencies in
Council assembled resolved as follows: - “Inasmuch as the case of heresy of M.
Servetus vitally affects the welfare of Christendom, it is resolved to proceed with his
trial.”[9] At this sitting, Calvin and the ministers, his colleagues, were introduced by
the Attorney-General. They were wanted to give their evidence as to the meaning of
the word person, as used in certain passages of the Fathers. Servetus taught that the
person of the Son of God had no existence prior to the Incarnation. He held that Christ
existed from all eternity only as an idea, not as a person, in the essence or bosom of
God, and that the term Son of God is applied in Scripture to Christ Jesus as a
man.[10] He cited passages from Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Clement, favourable as he
thought to this opinion; and it was to give judgment on Servetus’ interpretation of
these passages that the pastors were now summoned. The service asked of them they
rendered.
At the meeting on the 23rd, the Attorney-General produced a new indictment against
Servetus. It differed considerably from that which Fontaine had given in when the
prisoner was first arrested, and which had been drawn up by Calvin. This new
indictment dropped the theological errors of Servetus out of view altogether, wellnigh, and gave marked prominence to his offences against society. Its title ran thus: “These are the interrogations and articles upon which the Attorney-General of this
city desires to question Michael Servetus, a prisoner, guilty of blasphemies, of
heresies, and of disturbing Christendom.” “If Servetus had had, in the eyes of
Genevese justice,” says Rilliet, “no other fault than that of which De la Fontaine had
declared him guilty in regard to Calvin, his acquittal had been sure.” “If Calvin
alone,” he continues, “had been concerned in the affair of Servetus, all his efforts
would have been unavailing to secure the condemnation of his adversary.” “Servetus
was tried,” says he again, “and, as we shall mention below, condemned by the
majority of his judges, not at all as the opponent of Calvin - scarcely as a heretic - but
essentially as seditious. Politics acted a much more important part than theology,
towards the close of this trial - they came on the stage with the AttorneyGeneral.”[11] Servetus saw the new position in which he stood, and strove to defend
himself against the charges of the Attorney-General, not by denying that his opinions
were theologically false, but by trying to show that they were not socially dangerous.
This defence he followed up with a petition to the magistrates, in which he laboured
to convince them that his opinions at the worst were only speculative errors, and not
practical seditions; and, adds Rilliet, had he been able to make it appear that they were
“divested of all practical results, the issue of his trial would not have been fatal.” [12]
There came, at this stage of the business, a series of discussions on points which we
can not help thinking were irrelevant. Servetus was interrogated respecting his
persistency in publishing his opinions, seeing he knew they were condemned by
ancient Councils and imperial decrees, and the evil he had done or wished to do
society by maintaining them. He replied, with ability and apparent frankness, that
believing it to be the truth which he held, he would have offended God if he had not
published it; that the ecclesiastical edicts and imperial decrees, which menaced him
with death for these opinions, dated from a period when the Church had become more
or less corrupt, and that the Church in apostolic times knew no such edicts, nor
approved the doctrine of repelling opinion by force. These were truths, and the only
mistake about them - to Servetus a very serious one - was that they came three
centuries too soon, and were addressed to judges who were incapable of feeling their
104
force. But when the prisoner affirmed that he had hardly ever spoken to any one on
his peculiar opinions, he stated what it was impossible to reconcile with the known
fact of his twenty years’ active diffusion of his sentiments in Germany and France.
This was the very week in which the struggle between Calvin and the Libertines came
to a crisis.[13] The authority, and it might be the life of the Reformer, hung upon the
issue of that contest. Servetus from his prison watched the ebb and flow of the battle,
and was humble and bold by turns, as victory appeared to incline now to Calvin and
now to the Libertines. The approaching Sunday was that of the September
Communion, and Berthelier, as we have seen, held an order from the Council,
authorising him to appear at the holy table.
This seemed the death-warrant of Calvin’s power. We can trace the influence of this
turn of affairs upon Servetus. The Council had ordered Calvin to extract from his
works, and to present without note or comment, those propositions in them which he
deemed false. In obedience to the order, the Reformer drew up thirty-eight
articles,[14] which were given to the prisoner to be answered by him. But Servetus’
reply bore the character of a bitter attack upon the Reformer, rather than that of a
defence of himself. “Wretch,” said he, apostrophising Calvin, “do you think to stun
the ears of the judges by your barking? You have a confused intellect, so that you can
not understand the truth. Perverted by Simon Magus, you are ignorant of the first
principles of things - you make men only blocks and stones, by establishing the
slavery of the will.”[15] To write thus within the walls of a prison, was to be very sure
of victory!
Nay, Servetus, looking upon Calvin as already fallen, no longer has recourse to
subterfuges; he no longer seeks to show that his doctrines are innocuous. Throwing
aside the veil, he openly avows that he held the opinions imputed to him in his
indictment. He had drawn up his self-accusation with his own hand.
Calvin instantly wrote an answer to the paper of Servetus, as the Council had
required. His strong hand thrust back the unhappy man into his former position.
“Injurious words against Servetus,” says Rilliet, “are not spared, but these were a coin
so current in those days that, instead of being deemed excessive, they fell from the
pen without observation.” The Reformer’s answer was given in to the judges, signed
by all the ministers of the Church of Geneva, fourteen in number. No sooner has
Calvin laid down the pen than, seeing his own position and work are at that moment
trembling in the balance, he turns to the other and graver conflict. On Saturday, the
2nd of September, he appeared before the Little Council to demand the cancelling of
the warrant given to Berthelier to receive the Lord’s Supper. The Council declined to
comply. It retained in its own hands the power to admit or to exclude whomsoever it
would from the Communion-table. It stripped Calvin and the Consistory of all
ecclesiastical authority and power, and, of course, of all responsibility for censures
and punishments of an ecclesiastical kind. This power the Council took solely upon
itself. The use it made of it will afterwards appear.
The scene that took place in the Cathedral of St. Peter’s the very next day we have
already narrated. But the Reformer did not account it enough that he refused to obey
in a matter which the laws of the State gave no right to the Council to command; he
resolved, although at the risk of life, to maintain the battle, and reconquer the lost
prerogative, without which he would not remain in Geneva.
105
On the 7th September, Calvin and his colleagues went to the Little Council, with the
text of the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, and appealing to the letter of the law he showed
the Council that the Ordinances gave it no power concerning excommunication, and
that what it had done was a subversion of the Constitution of Geneva. He further
craved the Council to make known its final determination upon the point, that he and
his colleagues might be able to regulate their conduct as regarded resigning or
retaining their functions in Geneva. The Council took three days to consider the
matter, and, adds the Register, it “commanded that meanwhile M. Calvin must preach
and do his duty.” On the 18th September, the Council passed a resolution declaring
that “it would adhere to the edicts as it had hitherto done.”[16] This reply, in point of
ambiguity, was almost Delphic. Interpreted by recent edicts, it meant that the Council
saw nothing inconsistent with the edicts in what they had done, and would still retain
in their own hands the ecclesiastical government. Still the Reformer did not view it as
justifying him in abandoning his work in Geneva, and Farel and other friends wrote at
this crisis earnestly beseeching him not to quit his post.
Meanwhile Servetus was busy in his prison with his annotations on Calvin’s reply.
The unhappy man, believing that his friends, the Libertines, who communicated with
him through the jailer, were on the eve of triumphing, and that the Reformer was as
good as fallen, was no longer at pains to conceal his intense hatred of the latter.
Writing between the lines and on the margin of Calvin’s document, he expressed
himself in the following melancholy terms - “You howl like a blind man in desert
places, because the spirit of vengeance burns in your heart. You lie, you lie, you lie,
you ignorant calumniator.”[17] There followed a good deal more in the same vein.
The Reformer was shown the writing, but leaving to Servetus the last word, he
deigned no reply.
At this stage of the affair the magistrates of Geneva resolved (19th September) to
consult the Helvetic Churches. Servetus himself had expressed a wish to that effect. A
messenger of State, Jacquemoz Jernoz, was dispatched on the 21st to the Churches of
Bern, Zurich, Schaffhausen, and Basle. He carried letters to the magistrates as well as
to the pastors of the four cities, as also the requisite documents - namely, the articles
of accusation, the papers exchanged between Servetus and Calvin, and a copy of the
Christianismi Restitutio.
From this moment Calvin quits the scene. The course of the affair was precisely what
it would have been although he had not been in Geneva at all. His influence with the
Council was then at zero. We think we can see the end served thereby, though Calvin
could not. To him it was only mortifying as betokening impending overthrow to the
Reformation in Geneva. Writing to Bullinger at Zurich, on the 7th of September, he
says: “Were I to declare that it is day at high-noon, they [the Council] would
immediately begin to doubt it.” That is all which he could put on paper, but, adds he,
“our brother Walther [the son-in-law of Bullinger] will tell you more.” This shows
that the idea entertained by some that the Reformer was at that time all-powerful with
the Council, and that he dictated the sentence it was to pronounce, is an entire
misapprehension.
106
CHAPTER 22
CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF SERVETUS
In the resolution to which the magistrates of Geneva had come, to lay the affair of
Servetus before the Swiss Reformed Churches, we see the Churches of Helvetia
formed into a jury. Pending the verdict, which it would seem Servetus did not for a
moment doubt would be entirely in his favour, the accused took another step against
Calvin. From his prison, on the 22nd of September, he sent to the Council a list of
“articles on which M. Servetus wishes J. Calvin to be interrogated.” He there accuses
Calvin of having falsely imputed to him the opinion that the soul is mortal. “If I have
said that - not merely said it, but publicly written it - to infect the world, I would
condemn myself to death. Wherefore, my lords, I demand that my false accuser be
punished, poena talionis, and that he be detained a prisoner like me, till the cause be
decided for his death or mine, or other punishment.”[1] Servetus had formerly
declined the civil jurisdiction in matters theological; he now, in the hope of placing
the Reformer in the same hazard as himself, accepts that jurisdiction in those very
matters in which he had before declined it. And further, he makes it plain that he was
not more liberal than his age, in holding that a conviction for heresy ought to draw
after it the punishment of death.
Meanwhile the State messenger was making his circuit of the four cities, sojourning
long enough in each to permit the magistrates and pastors to consider the documents,
and make up their minds. At the end of nearly a month, the messenger returned. The
answers of the cities and pastors were given in to the Council on the 18th of October:
they were eight in all, there being a deliverance from the Government and a
deliverance from the Church in each case. The verdict eight times pronounced, with
awful unanimity, was death. Thus, outside the territory of Geneva, was the fate of
Servetus decided.[2] About the same time that the suffrages of the Swiss Churches
were given in, an officer arrived at Geneva from the tribunal of Vienne. This man
carried an order from his masters empowering him to demand the surrender of the
prisoner, and bring him to Vienne, that he might undergo the sentence that had been
passed upon him. Their Lordships of Geneva replied that it was not their custom to
give up one charged with a crime till he had been either acquitted or condemned.
However, confronting Servetus with the Viennese officer, they asked him whether he
would remain with them or go back with the person who had come to fetch him. The
unhappy man with tears in his eyes replied, “Messieurs of Geneva, judge me
according to your good pleasure, but do not send me back with the hangman.” This
interference of the Roman Catholic authorities of Vienne hastened the fate of the
prisoner.[3]
The Council of Geneva assembled on the 26th of October to give judgment. The
discussion was a stormy one. Perrin, with the Libertines, fought hard to save the
accused; but the preponderating majority felt that the case could have but one issue.
Servetus had already been condemned by the Popish tribunal of Vienne; the tribunal
of the Swiss Reform had unanimously condemned him; the codes of Theodosius and
Justinian, which still formed the basis of the criminal jurisprudence of Geneva,
condemned him; and the universal opinion of Christendom, Popish and Protestant,
held him to be worthy of death. To these considerations was added the horror his
sentiments had inspired in all minds. Not only did his opinions outrage the
107
fundamental doctrines of the then common creed of Christendom; they assailed with
atrocious blasphemy the persons of the Trinity; and they tore up, in their last
consequences, the roots of society, by striking down conscience within man, and the
power of law without him. What day the Council acquitted Servetus, it pronounced
the dissolution of the State, political and religious, and opened the flood-gates on
Christendom of those horrible impieties and massacring crusades which had already
inflicted fearful havoc in many of the provinces of Germany.
Europe, they believed, would not hold them guiltless if they let loose this plague a
second time. Therefore, without consulting Calvin, without even thinking of him, and
viewing the question as a social rather than a theological one, and dealing with it as
sedition rather than heresy for, says Rilliet, “the principles of order, as then
understood, did not permit them longer to hesitate as to whether or not they should see
in them [i.e., the opinions of Servetus] the crime of treason against society”[4] - the
magistrates of Geneva closed their Diet of the 26th of October with a decree
condemning Servetus to death. “Let him,” so ran the decree of the Council, as
described in the Register, “be condemned to be led to Champel, and there burned
alive, and let him be executed tomorrow, and his books consumed.”[5]
We record with horror the sentence, but it is the sentence not of the magistrates of
Geneva only, nor of the magistrates and pastors of Reformed Switzerland only: it is
the sentence of the Christendom of that age, for the Inquisition on one side, and
Melancthon on the other, are heard expressing their concurrence in it. At this supreme
hour one man alone comes forward to attempt a mitigation of the punishment of
Servetus.
Who is that man? He is John Calvin. He earnestly interceded with the Council, not
that the unfortunate victim might be spared, but that the sword might be substituted
for the fire; but he interceded in vain. “It is to him, notwithstanding,” says Rilliet,
“that men have always imputed the guilt of that funeral pile, which he wished had
never been reared.”[6]
We must pursue this affair to its appalling and scandalous termination. Farel, who had
been watching from Neuchatel the progress of the trial, came suddenly to Geneva at
its close. He was present with the unhappy man when the message of death was
brought him. Up till that moment Servetus had clung to the hope of acquittal. He was
horror-struck when the dreadful reality disclosed itself to him. “He was at intervals,”
says Calvin, “like one mad - then he uttered groans, which resounded through his
chamber - anon he began to howl like one out of his senses. In brief, he had all the
appearance of a demoniac. At last his outcry was so great that he without intermission
exclaimed in Spanish, striking his breast, ‘Mercy! mercy!’” A terrible picture! and
one can not but wish that, with its graphic touches, there had mingled a little more of
that pity which it needs must awaken for the sufferer in the heart of every one who
reads it. When his first paroxysm had subsided, Farel, addressing Servetus, besought
him “to repent of his sins, and confess the God who had thrice revealed himself.”[7]
This appeal but rekindled the polemical pride of the unhappy man.
Turning to the aged evangelist, he asked him to produce a single passage from
Scripture where Christ was called the Son of God previous to his coming in the flesh.
Farel quoted several such passages; but Servetus, though he had nothing to reply,
remained unconvinced, and continued to mingle cries for mercy, and appeals to Christ
108
as his Saviour, with his disputation with Farel, in which he maintained that Christ was
not eternal, nor otherwise the Son of God except as regards his humanity.[8]
After this he requested, or at least consented, to see Calvin. The Reformer was
accompanied to the prison by two members of Council, for it was just possible that
the condemned would make a retractation, and the terrible necessity of his death be
avoided. Being asked by one of the councillors what he had to say to Calvin, Servetus
answered that he desired to ask his pardon. “I protest,” replied the Reformer, “that I
have never pursued against you any private quarrel.” Mildly, yet with the utmost
fidelity, Calvin went on to remind Servetus of the pains he had been at to prevent him
plunging into these destructive errors; and he counselled him, even now, to turn to
God, and cast himself by repentance and faith on his Son for pardon.[9] But Calvin
had no better success than Farel; and, finding that he could effect nothing, he
withdrew.
Whose heart does not bleed for the unhappy man? We feel a compassion and sorrow
for Servetus such as we feel for no martyr. The men who died for the Gospel were
upheld by the greatness and justice of their cause. Instead of falling prostrate before
their judges, they stood erect, their faces shining with the light of faith. They trod the
path to the fire, not with serenity only, but with songs of holy triumph, knowing that
“one like unto the Son of Man” would descend and stand beside them in the midst of
the flames. But, alas! where shall Servetus look for consolation in his hour of agony?
On whose arm shall he lean when he goes forth to die? and who will be his
companion when he stands at the stake? The Trinity was to him “a Cerberus.” From
that Son to whom the Father said, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” and who
is “able to save to the uttermost,” and from that Holy Spirit “who is the Comforter,”
his creed shut him out. And now, when the storm comes down upon him in a violence
so terrific, he is without a shelter. No rock can he find on which to stay his feet amid
the surging billows. At the gates of the new dispensation on which Christendom is
entering stands Servetus, a monument of salt, to show the world how little power
there is in a creed emptied of all the great verities of revelation, to sustain the soul
amid the grand and dread eventualities of existence.
As yet Servetus was ignorant, that he was to die by fire. Calvin had earnestly
besought the Council that the miserable man might be spared this terrible surprise, but
he had pleaded in vain. The magistrates would not permit him to influence their
proceedings in the matter, even to the extent of substituting the sword for the stake. It
was the morning of the 27th of October, the day named for execution; Farel and some
country ministers were with Servetus as early as seven o’clock. The precious hours
would seem to have passed in wretched polemical discussions on the part of the
condemned, who seemed more intent on triumphing in the argument with the pastors,
than prevailing in his suit at the gates of the Eternal Mercy. It was now eleven o’clock
in the forenoon. The Lord Lieutenant, accompanied by the Secretary of Justice,
entered the prison, and addressed Servetus in the customary words, “Come with me
and hear the good pleasure of my lords.”[10] He was led before the court. “The staff
was broken over his head,”[11] as was the wont with criminals adjudged to death, and
the sentence was then read by the presiding syndic. Scarcely had the last words, which
doomed him “to be fastened to a stake, and burned alive, till his body be reduced to
ashes,” fallen on his ears, when he cast himself at the feet of his judges, entreating
that he might be permitted to die by the sword,”[12] saying that if he had erred, he
109
had erred through ignorance, and that his opinions were conformable to the Word of
God. The syndics remained inexorable. Turning to the prisoner, Farel said that he
must first disavow his errors, and then ask forgiveness. Again Servetus obtested his
innocence, saying that he was being led to death as a sacrifice, and that he prayed God
to forgive his accusers. Farel, with a sternness which is at least remarkable,
threatened, should Servetus persist in these protestations of innocence, to leave him,
and not go with him to the stake. The wretched man, feeling that in parting with Farel
he was parting with the last poor remnant of human sympathy and comfort left him,
held his peace.[13]
Doom has been spoken, and now the procession is marshalled and descends the steps
of the town-hall. The Lord Lieutenant and the Herald, in the insignia of their office,
head the way on horseback. Aghast, trembling, and pallid with terror, the white-haired
Farel by his side, Servetus appears in the midst of the archers that form his escort. A
crowd, smaller than usually assists at such sights, brings up the rear. The executioners
had gone on before to prepare the funeral pile. The procession issued from the city by
the gate of St. Anthony. They leave on the left the spot, now bare, where stood the
celebrated Faubourg and Church of St. Victor, razed in 1534 for the defence of the
city; on the right are the downs of Plain Palais, the Campus Martius of Geneva. The
one recalled the sacrifices of the citizens for liberty, the other their gala-days of civic
festival and military pomp. In the south, about a mile from the city gates, rose the
little eminence of Champel, on the summit of which the stake had been fixed [14]
Sobs and ejaculatory prayers burst from Servetus as he pursued his brief and bitter
pilgrimage to the fire. “O God!” he cried, “deliver my soul. Jesus, Son of the Eternal
Father, have mercy on me.”
Farel has no word of solace to offer; he moves along by the side of Servetus, half in
sorrow, half in anger; this to us looks heartless - nay, cruel; but Farel doubtless felt
that consolation he could not offer without being insincere, and doing violence to his
own convictions. It was his uprightness that made him look so stern, for the more
earnest he was for the true welfare of the unhappy man he was accompanying to the
stake, all the more did he strive to bring him to place his eternal hopes, not upon the
man-God, but upon the God-man.[15]
The melancholy procession had now arrived at Champel. The stake that rose on its
summit was the one dark object in a scene otherwise full of light and beauty. The vast
plain, which lay outspread around the spot, wore a carpet of the richest foliage, now
beginning to be chequered with the autumnal tints. The far-off mountains were tipped
with the first silver of winter. In the centre of the immense picture gleamed the blue
Leman, a mirror of polished steel. On the south of it were seen, rushing along in their
winding course, the snow-grey waters of the Arve. On the north was the mighty
amphitheatre of the woody Jura, which, entering France and sweeping down towards
Savoy, showed its massy rampart cleft in the southwest to give passage to the Rhone.
In this assemblage of riches one object alone appeared in naked desolation. At some
distance rose the steep, barren, rocky Saleve, its blackness typical of the tragedy
transpiring on the summit of the little Champel, on which it looked down.
Farel asks him whether he has wife or child, and would wish to make his will?
Servetus makes him no answer.[16] He asks again whether he has anything else to
say, hoping till the last moment to hear him confess a Divine Redeemer. Sighing
deeply, Servetus exclaims, “O God! O God!” Farel bids him ask the prayers of the
110
people. He does so; Farel uniting his own exhortations to the same effect to the
bystanders.[17] While these supplications are being offered in silence, Servetus
mounts the pile and seats himself on the log of wood which had been placed there for
that purpose. He was fastened to the stake by an iron chain put round his body, and a
rope twisted round his neck. The executioner now kindled the torch, and, approaching
the pile, set fire to the wood. At the first glare of the flames Servetus gave a shriek so
terrible that it made the crowd fall back.[18] On his head was a wreath, woven of
straw and leaves, sprinkled with brimstone, the sooner to suffocate him. His book,
Restitutio Christianismi, was bound to his side, to be consumed with him.[19] The fire
burned but slowly, and he lived for half-an-hour at the stake.[20] Some narrators say
that a little before expiring he cried aloud, “Jesus, Thou Son of the Eternal God, have
mercy upon me!” Farel says, on the other hand, that he protested “in the midst of the
flames, and in defiance of the whole Christian world, against the doctrine of the
Trinity.”
A great historian exclaims that the stake of Servetus caused him greater horror than all
the autos-da-fe of Rome. A signal inconsistency - as the burning of Servetus in a
Protestant republic was - may no doubt strike one more than does a course of crime
steadily and persistently pursued; but surely that mind is strangely constituted which
is less moved to commiseration by thousands of victims than by one victim. The same
century which witnessed the pile of Servetus saw some thirty or forty thousand fires
kindled by the Church of Rome [21] for the burning of Protestants. But we by no
means plead the latter fact as a vindication of the former. We deplore - we condemn this one pile. It was a violation of the first principles of Protestantism. To say more on
this head, writing as we do in the nineteenth century, would be simply to declaim.
But let us not commit the injustice of Gibbon and those who have followed him. Let
us not select one of the actors, and make him the scapegoat of his age. We have
striven to give an impartial statement of facts, that the reader may know the precise
share which Calvin had in this transaction, and the exact amount of condemnation to
mete out to him.
Calvin informed the Council of Servetus’ arrival in Geneva; he drew up the articles of
indictment from the writings of Servetus, the first time at his own instance, and the
second time at the Council’s order; and he maintained these when face to face with
Servetus before the syndics. All this he could not decline to do without neglect of duty
as president of the Consistory. All this he was bound to do by the law of the State. If
we are to be discriminating in our censure, we must go farther back than the
denunciation given in to the Council, and come to the order of things established at
Geneva, which rendered this form of procedure in such cases imperative. It was a
vicious jurisprudence; but it was the jurisprudence of former ages, and of that age, and
the jurisprudence freely adopted by the citizens of Geneva. Those who condemn
Calvin for conforming to it in a matter of public duty, are in reality condemning him
for not being wiser in judicial matters than all previous ages, his own included, and
for not doing what there is no proof he had power to do, namely, changing the law of
the State, and the opinions of the age in which he lived. Beyond what we have stated
Calvin had no influence, and tried to exert none.
We further grant that Calvin wished a conviction, and that he approved of the
sentence as just - nay, expressed his satisfaction with it, having respect to the
alternative of acquittal - namely, the expulsion of the Reformation from Geneva. We
111
condemn him for these views; but that is to condemn him for living in the sixteenth
and not in the nineteenth century, and we condemn not him alone, but his age, for all
who lived with him shared these views, and believed it a duty to punish heresy with
death; although even already Calvin, as appears from his book of the following year,
had separated himself from the Romish idea that heresy is to be punished as heresy is to be smitten by the sword, though it should exist only in the depth of one’s bosom.
He would have the heretic punished only when he promulgates his opinions to the
disturbance of society. This is to come very near - nearer perhaps than any other man
of his day came - to the modern doctrine of toleration.
But further, it is only Protestants who are entitled to find fault with Calvin. No
Romanist can utter a word of condemnation. No Romanist of Calvin’s own age did
condemn him,[22] and no more can any Romanist of ours. The law of the Romish
world to this day awards death by burning to heresy; and the Romanist who condemns
the affair of Servetus, condemns what his Church then accounted, and still accounts, a
righteous and holy deed; and so condemns his Church, and himself not less, as a
member of it. He virtually declares that he ought to be a Protestant.
To Calvin, above all men, we owe it that we are able to rise above the error that
misled his age. And when we think, with profound regret, of this one stake planted by
Protestant hands, surely we are bound to reflect, with a gratitude not less profound, on
the thousands of stakes which the teaching of Calvin has prevented ever being set
up.[23]
112
CHAPTER 23
CALVIN’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH
MARTYRS, REFORMERS AND MONARCHS
Intense interest still attached to the great movement and its headquarters, the little
town of Geneva, around which the clouds of war and danger were gathering heavier
every day, though an unseen Hand withheld them from bursting.
There sat the man whom the death of Luther had left the one great chief of the
movement. With undaunted brow and steadfast eye, he surveys the vast field around
him, on which so many dangers gather and so many conflicts are being waged.
Assailed by all passions and by every party, by the democracy below and by the kings
above, the Reformer, nevertheless, pursued his Herculean task, and saw his work year
by year taking deeper root and extending wider on all sides. Luther’s energies
declined as his years advanced, and he had the mortification, before he went to his
grave, of seeing the Reformation in Germany beginning to lose the purity to which it
owed the splendour of its early morning, and the power that made it in its noon the
ruler of the Teutonic nations. But Calvin’s latter years were his most triumphant, for
neither did his powers decay nor his work stand still; on the contrary, the one
continued to strengthen, and the other to advance, till his last hour on earth. His first
years had been spent in elaborating the scheme of Christian doctrine: his next were
passed in constructing a spiritual machinery, through which the influence of his
doctrine might go forth in order to the purifying and elevating of society; hence his
efforts to hold Geneva, and to quell the infidel democracy, whose instincts taught it
that its greatest enemy was Calvin’s Gospel, and that it must crush it or be crushed by
it. Having made good Geneva as a basis of Protestant operations, Calvin’s third period
was passed in planting his system abroad, and guiding, by his writings and letters, the
Reformation in France, England, Switzerland, Poland, and other countries. There was
no land where Calvin was not present.
Geneva, while the Reformer lived in it, was continually opening its gates to give
asylum to the persecuted of other countries. The same gates were continually opening
to let those go forth who were returning to the field of labour, or it might be of
martyrdom. We can give here only a few instances. One day, in the summer of 1553,
a missionary was commissioned to carry a letter from Calvin, “To the faithful
dispersed in some isles of France.” His name was Philibert Hamelin, and he was on
his way to the coast of Saintonge, where a young flock were much in want of some
one to organise and instruct them. Hamelin, a native of Tours, was the first preacher
of the Reformed doctrine in Saintes. He was seized in that town, but escaping death
by almost a miracle, he came to Geneva, where he followed the calling of a printer.
But the ardour of his zeal would not suffer him to remain in his asylum. He set out to
revisit his brethren, “dispersed among the isles,” with this letter, in which Calvin,
addressing these young converts, said: “We are nowise of opinion that you should be
in a hurry to partake of the Holy Supper until you have some order established among
you. . . Nay, it would not be lawful for a man to administer the Sacraments to you,
unless he recognised you as the flock of Jesus Christ, and found among you the form
of a Church.” The devoted missionary, in an apostolate of four years, organised their
Churches. He never returned to the great captain who had sent him forth, to tell what
success had attended his labours. Taken anew, he was burned alive at Bordeaux, the
18th April, 1557. [1]
113
Whilst there was one stake in the Place Champel, surrounding countries were lit up
with a multitude of blazing stakes. But there was not one of these piles at which
Calvin was not present, nor was there one of these sufferers who was not refreshed by
his words amid the flames. In the July of 1553 two confessors were expecting death in
the prisons of Lyons. Calvin received the tidings during the trial of Servetus, and
when he was in the thick of his contest with the Libertines. He hastened to their
dungeon, as it were, and by words from his own courageous yet tender heart
comforted theirs. “That God,” he told them, “who had called them to the honour of
maintaining His truth, would lead them to martyrdom as by the hand.” He bade them
think of the “heavenly immortality” to which the “cross and shame and death”
conducted, and of Him who waited, the moment these were ended, to wipe away all
tears. One of these sufferers, who had been reached by the words of Calvin, thus
thanked him: - “I could not tell you, sir and brother,” wrote Louis Marsac, “the great
comfort I received from the letters which you sent to my brother, Denis Peloquin, who
found means of passing them to one of our brethren who was in an underground cell
above me, and read them to me, because I could not read them, inasmuch as I can see
nothing in my dungeon. I pray you, therefore, to persevere in aiding us always with
like consolation, which invites us to weep and pray.” When the little company of
martyrs, of which Louis Marsac was one, were led forth to be burned, all appeared
with halters round their necks except Louis. His enemies had spared him this indignity
on the ground of his being nobly born. But so far from reckoning this as a favour, he
even deemed the denial of it a dishonour, and asked why he was refused the collar of
that “excellent order” of martyrs.[2]
Of all the martyrdoms of the period, the most touching perhaps is that of “the five
martyrs of Lyons.” Natives of France, and desirous of taking part in the Reformation
of their own country, they repaired to Lausanne to study theology and qualify
themselves for the ministry. Having completed their course, they received licence to
preach, and set out to begin their labours in France. They rested a few days in Geneva,
and then passed on to their destined field, their spirits invigorated, we can well
believe, by their brief stay in the capital of Protestantism, and especially by their
converse with its great chief. Light they were destined to impart to their native France,
but not in the way they had fondly hoped. On their journey to Lyons they met at the
Bourg de Colonges, nigh to L’Ecluse, a stranger who offered himself as their fellowtraveller. They harboured no suspicion, and maintained no disguise in the company of
their new acquaintance. Soon after their arrival at Lyons, they were arrested and
thrown into prison. Their companion had betrayed them. Their fate having awakened
great interest, powerful influence was used in their behalf [3] at the court of France.
The Bernese Government interceded for “their scholars” with the king. Some among
the Romanists even, touched by their pure lives and their lovely characters, interested
themselves for their safety. Meanwhile their trial proceeded at Lyons. The brutality of
the judges was as conspicuous as the constancy of the prisoners. From the sentence of
the Lyonnese court, which adjudged them to death, they appealed to the Parliament of
Paris.
On the 1st of March, 1553, the decree arrived from the capital confirming the
sentence of the court below. So, then, it was by their burning pile, and not by the
eloquence of their living voice, that they were to aid in dispelling the darkness that
brooded over their native land. There was mourning in Lausanne and Geneva, and in
other places on the shores of the Leman, when it was known that those who had so
114
lately gone forth from them, and for whom they had augured a career of the highest
usefulness, were so soon to meet a tragic death.
“We have been, for some days past, in deeper anxiety and sadness than ever,” writes
Calvin to them, when he had learned the final decision of their persecutors. Turning
away from the throne of Henry II., “We shall,” says he, “do our duty herein by
praying to Him that He may glorify Himself more and more in your constancy, and
that He may by the consolation of His Spirit sweeten and endear all that is bitter to the
flesh, and so absorb your spirits in Himself, that in contemplating that heavenly crown
you may be ready without regret to leave all that belongs to this world. If He has
promised to strengthen with patience those who suffer chastisement for their sins,
how much less will He be found wanting to those who maintain his quarrel! He who
dwells in you is stronger than the world.” [4]
How calm these words, when we think who spoke them, and that they were spoken to
men about to expire in the fire! They breathe not the enthusiasm of feeling, but the
enthusiasm of faith. These five young men were to die for the Gospel, but this was an
every-day service in those days. Every disciple was supposed to be ready to lay down
his life, and to do so with the calm magnanimity of the soldier who does his duty and
nothing more. Calvin himself was prepared at any hour to walk to the stake with the
same absence of ostentation, the same obliviousness of doing a grand act, as if he had
been stepping into his pulpit. Was there, then, no enthusiasm in those days? Yes,
enthusiasm indeed there was; but it was an enthusiasm that sustained itself, from day
to day and from hour to hour, at so lofty a pitch that it could rise no higher. It could
have no spasm, no burst. Hence, neither was boast in the mouth of the men who did
the act, nor applause in the mouths of those who witnessed it. The spectacle is all the
more sublime.
On the 16th of May the five young students were led to the fire. They died with a
heroism worthy of their age. “Being come to the place of execution,” says Crespin,
“they ascended with a joyful heart the pile of wood, the two youngest first. The last
who ascended was Martial Alba, the eldest of the five, who had a long time been on
both his knees praying to the Lord. He asked Lieutenant Tignac to grant him a gift.
The lieutenant said to him, ‘What willest thou?’ He said to him, ‘That I may kiss my
brethren before I die.’ The lieutenant granted it to him. Then the said Martial kissed
the four who were already bound, saying to each of them, ‘Adieu, adieu, my brother.’
The fire was kindled. The voices of the five confessors were heard still exhorting one
another: ‘Courage, my brethren, courage!’ And these,” continues Crespin, “were the
last words heard from the said five valiant champions and martyrs of the Lord.”[5]
What, one can not refrain from asking, were the thoughts of Calvin, as he was told
that another and another had fallen in the conflict? The feelings of a Caesar or of a
Napoleon, as he surveys the red field of his ambition, we can imagine. Every corpse
stretched out upon it, every drop of blood that moistens its soil, is a silent accusation,
and cries aloud against him. Far other were the feelings of Calvin as he cast his eye
over the field around him, where so many, and these the noblest and purest of their
age, languished in dungeons, or quivered on the rack, or were expiring amid flames.
These were not soldiers who had been dragged into battle, and who had died to place
a crown upon the brow of another. They were men who had been fighting the battles
of their Savior, and who in dying had won for themselves the crown of life. Nor did
115
the Reformer for one moment despair of a cause that was suffering these repeated
tremendous losses.
Losses, did we say? Where and to whom was there loss? Not to the martyr, who
received an eternal life in place of the mortal one which he had laid down; nor to the
cause, which waxed stronger with each new martyr, and received another and another
pledge of final victory with every stake that was planted and every drop of blood that
was spilt. That such was the effect of these martyrdoms, we quote the testimony of
one who was no friend to Protestantism. “The fires were lighted everywhere,” says
Florimond de Raemond, “and as, on the one hand, the just severity of the law
restrained the people within their duty, on the other, the obstinate resolution of those
who were dragged to the gibbet astonished many. For they saw weak and delicate
women seeking for torment in order to prove their faith, and on their way to death
exclaiming, ‘Only Christ, the Saviour,’ and singing some psalm; young maidens
walking more gaily to execution than to the bridal-chamber; men rejoicing to behold
the terrible preparations and instruments of death, and, half-burned and roasted,
remaining like rocks against the waves of pain. These sad and constant sights excited
some perturbation, not only in the souls of the simple but of the great, who were not
able to persuade themselves that truth was not on the side of such as maintained it
with so much resolution at the cost of their life.”[6]
The same Calvin who was by the side of the martyr on the scaffold was also with the
statesman in his cabinet, and at times at the foot of the throne giving counsel to
princes. Henry VIII. had died in 1547, and with him expired that peculiar scheme of
Reform by which he aimed at abolishing the jurisdiction of the Pope, yet preserving
the religion of Popery. His son, Edward VI., mounted the throne in his tenth year. The
Duke of Somerset, now Lord Protector, had educated the young prince in the
principles of the Protestant faith. The fine talents and noble character of the youthful
monarch excited the highest hopes in Calvin, and he strove to win him more and more
for the Gospel. Nor were the hopes which the Reformer cherished disappointed. It
was during the reign of this pious prince, and the regency of Edward Seymour, Lord
Protector, that the Reformation was established in England. Hence the correspondence
of Calvin with Somerset, to whom he dedicated, June, 1548, his Commentary on the
First Epistle to Timothy. And hence, too, his remarkable letter to the same statesman
in October of the same year, in which he states fully his sentiments touching what was
necessary to complete the Reformation in England.
This matter will come before us in its proper place. Meanwhile we note that the
Reformer, in his letter to Lord Protector Somerset, insists on three things as necessary
to the moral transformation of England: first, the preaching of the pure Word of God;
second, the rooting out of abuses; and, third, the correction of vices and scandalous
offences. As regarded the first, the preaching of the Gospel, Calvin laid stress upon
the manner as well as the doctrine - upon the life as well as the purity of the pulpit.
“The people,” says he, “are to be so taught as to be touched to the quick, and feel that
the Word of God is a ‘two-edged sword.’ I speak this, Monseigneur,” continues the
Reformer, “because it appears to me that there is very little preaching of a lively kind
in the kingdom, but that the greater part deliver it by way of reading from a written
discourse. . . This preaching ought not to be lifeless but lively. Now you know, my
Lord,” Calvin goes on to say, “how St. Paul speaks of the liveliness which ought to be
in the mouth of good ministers of God, who ought not to make a parade of rhetoric in
116
order to show themselves off, but the Spirit of God must resound in their voice.” In
short, Calvin desiderated two things - “a good trumpet” and “a certain sound” - if the
Lord Protector would reap fruit of his labours, and the Reformation be permanent in
England.[7]
When at last the intrigues of his rivals prevailed against him, and the good Duke of
Somerset had to mount the scaffold, Calvin addressed the young king, whose heart
was not less set on the Reformation of England than had been that of the Lord
Protector. The Reformer dedicated to him two of his works, the Commentary on
Isaiah, and the Commentary on the Catholic Epistles. Edward VI. was at this time
only fourteen years of age, but his precocious intellect enabled him to appreciate and
even to judge of the works the Reformer had laid at his feet.
The bearer of these two books, the pastor Nicolas des Gallars, was received with
marked respect at the court of England. The books were accompanied by a letter to
the king, in which Calvin spoke with the plainness and honesty of the Reformer, yet,
mindful that he was addressing a king, he adopted the tone not of a master but of a
father.
Holding up to him the example of Josiah, he exhorted the young monarch to “follow
up the good work so happily begun;” he cautioned him against viewing it as achieved,
and that it was “not in a day that such an abyss of superstition as the Papacy is to be
purged.” “True it is, sire,” said he, “that there are things indifferent which we may
allowably tolerate, but then we must always insist that simplicity and order be
observed in the use of ceremonies, so that the clear light of the Gospel be not
obscured by them, as if we were still under the shadows of the law, and then that there
may be nothing allowed that is not in agreement and conformity to the order
established by the Son of God. For God does not allow his name to be trifled with,
mixing up silly frivolities with his holy and sacred ordinances.” “There is another
point, sire, of which you ought to take a special charge, namely, that the poor flocks
may not be destitute of pastors.” In fine, he exhorted the king to have a care for the
efficiency and purity of the schools and universities, for he had been informed that
“there are many young people supported on the college bursaries, who, instead of
giving good hope of service in the Church, do not conceal that they are opposed to the
true religion.” The Reformer entreated the king to take order therein, “to the effect
that property which ought to be held sacred be not converted to profane uses, and far
less to nourish venomous reptiles, who would desire nought better than to infect
everything for the future. For in this way the Gospel would always be kept back by
these schools, which ought to be the very pillar thereof.”[8]
The pious king had for primate the erudite Cranmer. The archbishop had cowered
under the capricious tyranny of Henry VIII., but now, moving no longer in the cold
and withering shade of that monarch, Cranmer was himself again; and not only was
he labouring zealously to complete the work of Reformation in England, he was also
holding out the hand to all the Reformers and Reformed Churches on the Continent.
He was at that time revolving a grand Protestant union. He desired that the friends of
the Gospel in all lands should come together, and deduce from the Word of God a
scheme of Christian doctrine which all might confess and hold, and which might be,
to the generation then living and to the ages to come, a standard round which the
Church might rally.[9] At Trent the Church of Rome was massing and marshalling her
troops; the Primate of England thought that the Protestant Church ought also to close
117
her ranks, and, presenting an unbroken front to the foe, be ready to repel his attack, or
to advance her own triumphs into regions where her banners had not yet been
displayed. Cranmer communicated his idea to the Reformer of Geneva.
Calvin, in his reply, intimated his approval of his “just and wise design,” and said that
for his own part, if he could further thereby the work of union, “he would not grudge
to cross even ten seas;” and he went on to indicate the existence of certain principles
that lay far down, even at the bottom of society, and which no eye save his own then
saw, but which have since come to the surface, and yielded that noxious and bitter
crop that he predicted they would if not obviated, “the distemper” even of “a stupid
inquisitiveness alternating with that of fearless extravagance.” The Reformer saw that
the future of Christendom was menaced by “terrible disorders,” not more by
difference in religious sentiments than by that speculative philosophic spirit which
contravenes the laws of true science not less than it contemns the authority of the
Scriptures. In short, Calvin foresaw, even at that early period, should Protestantism
fail, a pantheistic Europe.
Soon after this interchange of letters, the death of Edward VI. and the accession of
Queen Mary changed the whole face of affairs. The disastrous events which now took
the place of those bright triumphs that the good archbishop had judged to be so near,
belong to a subsequent period of our history.
118
CHAPTER 24
CALVIN’S MANIFOLD LABOURS
The heart of Calvin must have been unspeakably saddened and weighed down, as day
after day refugees arrived in Geneva, telling him that another and another of
England’s Reformers and scholars had perished at the stake, and that another and yet
another of the rites of Rome had been re-introduced into that kingdom where the light
of Reformation had begun to shine so clearly. But alike in the foul day as in the fair,
the Reformer must go on with his work. He stood at the helm, and if the storm
thickened, it was only the more necessary that he should turn his eye to every quarter
of the horizon, and counsel, warn, and encourage, as the circumstances of each of the
Protestant countries required. “He bore,” says Beza, “all these Churches upon his
shoulders.” Which of them was it that his voice did not reach? We find him in 1545
renewing his intercourse with the distant Austrian provinces. He dedicated his
Catechism to the Protestant communities there, with the view of establishing a union
in doctrine between them and the Church of Geneva. His watchful eye did not
overlook Poland. In 1549 he dedicated to the monarch of that country, Sigismund
Augustus, his Commentary on the Hebrews. He exhorted him to give himself to the
service of Christ, which places us “in the rank of angels,” and to follow the footsteps
of his father Sigismund, who, while persecution raged in many other countries, kept
his hands unstained with blood. Denmark and Sweden also shared Calvin’s solicitude.
In the year 1552 he dedicated the first half of his Commentary on the Acts of the
Apostles to the excellent Christian I.; and the second half he dedicated in 1554 to the
son of that monarch, Frederick.
Amid the crowned heads whom he thus acknowledges, the friends of his youth and
the refugees of the Gospel were not forgotten. The first part of his Commentary on the
Epistle to the Corinthians was dedicated, in 1546, to the Sieur de Bourgoyne; and, ten
years later, another part to an illustrious Neapolitan, the Marquis Caraccioli, a refugee
in Geneva. These dedications are finely conceived. The writer is forgetful neither of
their rank nor of his own greatness. The Commentary on the Second Epistle to the
Corinthians was dedicated to Melchior Wolmar, and he accompanied it with an
allusion, at once graceful and grateful, to the days he had spent with him in his youth
at Bourges. The Commentaries on the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians,
Philippians, and Colossians were dedicated to the young Duke Christopher of
Wurtemberg, to encourage him to persevere in the Reformed path, reminding him, as
he had said to the youthful Edward of England, that “it was a great matter to be a
Christian king, but a yet greater to be a Christian.” The Commentary on the First
Epistle to the Thessalonians was dedicated, in 1551, to the aged Mathurin Cordier, his
early revered teacher, now principal of the Gymnasium at Lausanne. This was his
public acknowledgment of what he owed to the man who had first opened to him the
gate of knowledge, and guided him in the path with so much skill and pains. What a
deeply affectionate and truthful nature do we discover in all this![1]
Letters and evangelists was Calvin daily sending to the Church of France. The
“Shepherd of Christendom,” he was specially the apostle of the French Church. Born
in that land, but driven out of it, he was here on its border, in his Alp-environed city,
to direct and watch over its Reformation. The Protestants of that great country would
have been far happier had they lent a profounder ear to his counsels. Their scaffolds
would have had more victims, it may be, but the slain of their battlefields would have
119
been fewer. His messengers also crossed the Alps, with letters to Renee, Duchess of
Ferrara. Encompassed by the spies of Rome, watched by a bigoted husband, with few
near her to succour her efforts, or share her longings for the emancipation of her fair
Italy, the words of Calvin must have been to the grief-stricken queen as “cold waters”
to one athirst. The Pyrenees no more than the Alps could confine his sympathies. He
corresponded with the Queen of Navarre, Margaret of Valois, and with her illustrious
daughter, Jeanne d’Albret. We do not wonder that the eye of the Reformer should rest
with special delight on the little kingdom governed by these wise and virtuous
princesses, for there the Protestant vine, so sorely buffeted by tempests in many other
lands, flourished in peace, and yielded abundance of happy fruits in the order, the
industry, and the morality of the region. And now, again, his attention was attracted to
England. Mary was dead, and Elizabeth was on the throne. To the foot of that throne
came the Reformer, to instruct, with a now fully-matured wisdom and prescience, the
great English sovereign and her ministers, how that faith, planted in their country by
Wycliffe, might be revived, and that goodly Church order set up by Cranmer, but
overthrown by the furious tempests that had since swept over the kingdom, might be
restored and completed.
It is on a country more to the north, then distinct from England, now happily one with
it, that the eye of the great chief of Protestantism rests with the greatest delight of all.
He had, perhaps, a presentiment that it was that country, rather than France, in which
his grand idea was to be realised. A son of that land had already found his way to
Geneva. The keen eye of Calvin quickly discerned what sort of man the stranger was.
The leonine lineaments of his soul, the robust powers of his intellect stood out to his
view; he was the likest to himself of all the men around him, and the two cleaved to
each other, and became knit together in the bonds of a holy friendship. Henceforward
it was to be Calvin and Knox. Alone, unapproached, towering above even the loftiest
of the men around him, stood the Reformer of Geneva; nevertheless the same two
qualities that constitute the basis of the character of Calvin constitute also that of
Knox. The first is absolute faith in God, the second is absolute submission to his
Word. In these two men, these twin principles existed to a degree of strength and
intensity which we find in no other of the Reformers, Luther excepted. These two
master-principles were the root that nourished all their virtues - their wisdom, their
fearless courage, their inflexible adherence to truth, and that unconquered and
unconquerable energy with which they pursued their great task till it was fully
achieved.
A strong, capacious, and versatile intellect did both these men possess. This helped
them in their work; it was like a sharp sword in the hand of a mighty man. But we
must never forget that the influence by which Knox regenerated Scotland, and Calvin
regenerated Christendom, was not an intellectual force, but a moral, a Divine power.
Their submission to the Scriptures gave them access to the deep fountains of that
celestial force, and enabled them to bring it into play in all its freshness, fullness, and
purity. To propel this quickening energy through a dead world was the work of
Calvin. It was his work from day to day. Sitting in his closet, he sent abroad the
arrows of light all over Christendom. It was by the clearness, the tranquillity, and the
beauty of his Commentaries that he acted upon the intellect and conscience of the
world. Thus he maintained the battle. With these shafts he smote his foes, and
overturned the kingdom of darkness.
120
When we think of his letters, written on affairs of the greatest weight, addressed to the
first men of position and intellect in Europe - some of them in the graceful and
concise Latin of a Cicero or a Seneca, others of them in French that formed the
precursor and model of the age of Montaigne - so numerous are they, that it might
have been supposed he wrote letters and did nothing besides. When we turn to his
Commentaries, so voluminous, so solid, and so impregnated with the spirituality, and
fire, and fragrance of the Divine Word; - again it would seem as if we had before us
the labours of a life-time. “The Commentaries of Calvin,” says Bungener, “mark a
revolution in the study of the Bible, and on that account occupy a distinguished place,
not only in the history of theology, but in that of the human mind.[2] These immortal
productions are above all else that he wrote or did. Calvin - the Calvin that lived and
acted on the world of the sixteenth century - lives and acts on that of the nineteenth
through these Commentaries.
When, again, we think of him in the pulpit, where he appeared, we may say, every
day; when we think of him in the Consistory, where he was present every week; in the
academy, whither he often went to address the youth; in the council-chamber, to
which he was frequently summoned to give advice on affairs of the State; when we
think of his combats with the Libertines, whose faction he overthrew; of his
hospitalities and attentions to the refugees of all nations; of the foreign Churches
which devolved upon him the task of their organization; of the hours spent in
meditation and prayer - and all accomplished in a feeble and sickly body - we find
once more that we have enough of work to fill a life-time, although it had stood alone;
and we stand amazed when we reflect that it was all done in a life which, when
closed, did not number fifty-five years complete.[3]
Modern Church history presents us with two examples of the very loftiest style of
governing. Both soar immensely above the ordinary and vulgar methods of rule. The
one presents itself at the meridian of the Papacy, the other is seen in the morning of
Protestantism. The two stand over against each other, a beacon and lesson to mankind.
We refer to Innocent III. of Rome, and John Calvin of Geneva.
Innocent professed to govern the world by methods purely spiritual, and on sanctions
altogether Divine. A man of comprehensive genius, and untiring in his application to
business, he wrote letters, promulgated edicts, convoked Councils, perfected the
doctrine of his Church by enacting transubstantiation, and completed its government
by the establishment of the Inquisition. In virtue of this machinery, more especially by
the terrible sentence of interdict, he made himself the master of all the thrones of
Europe; his will was obeyed to the remotest extremities of Christendom.
John Calvin held with Innocent that the will of God, as made known in the Scriptures,
ought to be the supreme law on earth. But the results that attended this principle as
enthroned at Rome were just the opposite of those that flowed from it as established at
Geneva, and worked by Calvin. Innocent cast down thrones; Calvin imparted stability
and dignity to them. Innocent’s rule sunk the nations into serfdom, Calvin’s raised
them to liberty. Innocent scattered the seeds of barbarism; Calvin sowed those of
virtue and intelligence. Why this markedly different result from what professed to be
the same government, in its foundation, in its maxims, and in its aims? It all lies in
this: Innocent shut the Word of God to the nations, by arrogating to himself the office
of its sole infallible interpreter; Calvin threw open the sacred volume, by asserting the
right of all to read and interpret it for themselves. He showed them, too, the road by
121
which they would arrive at a knowledge of its true meaning, and thus while Innocent
closed, Calvin opened the sluices of Divine influence on the world. Or, to express the
difference more briefly, Calvin governed by God; Innocent governed as God.
122
CHAPTER 25
FINAL VICTORY AND GLORY OF GENEVA
While Calvin was counselling monarchs, drafting plans of Reform for statesmen,
organising Churches, corresponding with theologians in all countries, and labouring to
harmonize their views of Divine truth - in short, acting as the moral legislator of
Christendom - he was the object of unceasing and bitter attack on the part of a faction
of the Genevese. They detested his presence in their town, openly insulted him on
their streets, and ceaselessly intrigued to drive him from Geneva, the city which he
had made famous throughout Europe, and which, the moment that he quitted it, would
sink into its original obscurity.
We have seen the victory which Calvin, at the peril of his life, won over the Libertines
in the Cathedral of St. Peter’s, on Sunday, the 3rd of September, 1553. The storm
lulled for a little while, but in a few months it was renewed. Those who were guilty of
scandals, and of course were visited with the censures of the Church, repaired to the
Council, and complained of the rigor of the Consistory. The ministers were
summoned to justify their proceedings - a hard task before magistrates, some of whom
were hostile, and almost all of whom were lukewarm in the cause of the spiritual
discipline. Might not Calvin, it may be said, have obviated these complaints by
separating the Church from the State, in the way of distinguishing between citizens
and Church-members, and holding only the latter amenable to the ecclesiastical
discipline? This practically was what the Reformer was aiming at doing. By excluding
the profane from the Lord’s Supper, he was separating the Church from the world; but
he was hampered by two circumstances - first, by the theocratic government existing
in Geneva, and which he found there in its rudimental state when he entered it; and
secondly, by the Libertines, who resented their exclusion from Church privileges as
an affront and wrong.
The Libertine faction, scotched but not killed, became bold in proportion as they saw
the Council was timid. “See,” said they, “how we are governed by French edicts and
by Calvin.” One of its opponents said of the Consistory that “it was more savage than
Satan himself,[1] but he hoped soon to tame it. Beza tells us that the revolutionary
party made obscene songs on the Word of God. Sometimes mock processions passed
along the street, singing profane parodies of the hymns of the Church.[2] “The
Libertines,” says Roset, “commenced the year 1555 with new manifestations of their
old wickedness. Having supped together, to the number of ten, on the night of the 9th
January, they took each a candle, and paraded the streets, singing, at the full stretch of
their voices, the psalms, interlaced with jeers.”[3] One day as Calvin was returning
from preaching in the suburb of St. Gervais, he was hustled on the bridge of the
Rhone by a knot of miscreants who had gathered there. He very quietly rebuked their
insolence by the remark that “the bridge was wide enough for them all.” We find him
about this time writing to Bullinger that “his position was become almost
unbearable.” We hear him pouring out his deep sighs, and expressing, like
Melancthon, his wish to die. This was much from the strong man. The days had come,
foreseen by him, and foretold in his own expressive language to Farel, when he
should have to “offer his bleeding heart as a sacrifice to God.” But, though his heart
bled, his spirit, ever undaunted, maintained the conflict with a patience and fortitude
not to be overcome.
123
The Reformer returned to Geneva from his banishment on the express promise of the
Council that the Consistory should be supreme in all ecclesiastical causes. Without
this provision Calvin would never again have entered the gates of that city. Not that
he wished power for himself. “I would rather die a hundred times,” said he, “than
appropriate that authority which is the common property of the Church.”[4] But
unless the sentences of the spiritual court were final, how could order and moral rule
be upheld? and without the supremacy of moral law, of what use would his presence
in Geneva be to Protestantism? But this essential point was all the more the object of
attack by the Libertines.
Amy Perrin, the personal foe of the Reformer, once more led in this second battle.[5]
“It is to us,” said Perrin and his troop, “an astonishing thing that a sovereignty should
exist within a sovereignty. Good sense seems to us to require that the sovereign
authority should be entire, and that all questions and parties should be under the rule
of the Seigneury. Not otherwise can we preserve that liberty which we have so dearly
bought. You are reviving the tyranny of the Pope and the prelates,” continued Perrin,
“under this new name of spiritual jurisdiction.”[6] “No,” replied the pastors, who had
assembled in the council-chamber, and were speaking through the mouth of Calvin,
“No; we only claim obedience to the rule of the Bible, the law of Jesus Christ, the
Head of the Church. He has given to us the power to bind and loose - in other words,
to preach the Word and to administer the Sacraments. The magistrates have no more
right to forbid us the exercise of this power, than we have to invade the government
and civil jurisdiction. To us holy things have been committed, and we shall take care
that the Table of the Lord is not dishonoured by the presence at it of the profane.”[7]
The pastors fortified their position by appealing to the separation between things
sacred and things civil, that existed under the Old Testament. To the family of Aaron
had all things appertaining to worship been assigned; to the house of David had the
civil government been committed. It appertained not to the most powerful of the
Jewish monarchs to perform the humblest service at the altar; and those kings who,
forgetting this distinction, presumed to bring their authority into the temple, were
smitten with judgment. “So far,” said Calvin in conclusion, “is the power of the
pastors from being a menace to the liberty of the republic, that it is its best protection.
Liberty without the Gospel is but a miserable slavery.”[8]
These reasonings were not without their effect on the magistrates. By a majority of
suffrages, the Council resolved that its former edict should remain in force - in other
words, that the arrangement made with Calvin when he returned to Geneva - namely,
that the final decision in all Church offences be with the Consistory - should be
maintained.[9] Geneva was still secured to the Reformer. The basis on which he
rested his great work, both in Geneva itself and throughout Christendom, the
Libertines had not yet been able to overturn.
They did not, however, accept of their defeat and desist from the war. Baffled in this
front attack, they next assailed the Reformer on the flank. “We have too many
ministers,” said they, raising their voices to a loud pitch. “We have too many
ministers and too many sermons.” There were then only four pastors in Geneva; but
the Libertines thought that they were four too many, and although they did not
demand their entire suppression as yet, they modestly proposed that they should be
reduced to two. As regarded the Churches, they would not lock their doors outright,
but they would at once abolish the sermon, in which their vices were branded with a
124
pointedness and lashed with a severity since transferred from the pulpit to the press
and the platform. They were willing that a harmless kind of worship should go on.
They would permit the people to be taught the “Creed,” the “Lord’s Prayer,” and the
“Ten Commandments.” This amount of instruction, they thought, might be safely
tolerated. As to those floods of exposition poured forth upon them weekday and
Sunday, they saw no need for such: it was dangerous; and the Council ought to raise
legal dykes within which to confine this torrent of pious eloquence.[10]
The Libertines next turned their attention to the correction of another great abuse, as
they deemed it. The liberty of the press found no favour in the eyes of these
champions of freedom. What is the use, they asked, of so many Commentaries and
printed books? We must fetter the pen of this Calvin, for the State of Geneva is not
able to bear the many books he is sending forth. We must stop this plethora of writing
and publishing.[11]
Such was their estimate of that mighty genius, in the light of which kings and
statesmen were glad to walk! We may imagine what would have been the fame of
Geneva, and what the state of letters and civilization in Europe in the next century, if
the Libertines instead of Calvin had triumphed in this controversy.
There arose yet another cause of complaint and quarrel. The refugees who sought
asylum in Geneva were at this time increasing from week to week. Weeded out by the
hand of persecution, they were the men of the purest morals, of the richest culture,
and the noblest souls which the surrounding countries could boast. Not a few were
men of the highest rank, and of very large possessions, although in almost every case
they arrived penniless.[12]
The little State began to inscribe their names on the registers of its citizens. The
proudest kingdom would have done itself an honour by enrolling such men among its
subjects. Not so did Perrin and his faction account it.
“They are beggars who have come here to eat the bread of the Genevese.” - so did
they speak of those who had forsaken all for the Gospel - “they are Calvin’s allies,
who flock hither to support him in tyrannizing over the children of the soil; they are
usurping the rights of the ancient burgesses and destroying the liberties of the town;
they are the enemies of the republic, and what so likely as that they will purchase their
way back into their own country by betraying Geneva to the King of France?” These
and similar accusations - the ready invention of coarse and malignant natures - were
secretly whispered among the populace, and at last openly preferred before the
Council, against the distinguished men of almost every nationality now assembled in
Geneva.
Early in the year 1555 the matter came to a head, and we note it more particularly
because it brought on the final struggle which overturned the faction of the Libertines,
and left the victory wholly with Calvin. At one sitting the Council admitted as many
as fifty foreigners, all men of known worth, to the rights of citizenship. Perrin and his
followers raised a louder cry than ever. “The scum of Europe,” “the supporters of
Calvin’s despotism,” are possessing themselves of our heritage. These were the
epithets by which they chose to designate the new burgesses. These men had not,
indeed, been born on the soil of the republic, but Geneva had no better citizens than
they; certainly none more willing to obey her law, or more ready to shed their blood
125
for her liberty if occasion should require. The Gospel, which they had embraced,
made the territory of Geneva more their native land than the country they had left. But
the Libertines understood nothing of all this. They went to the Council and
complained, but the Council would not listen to them. They carried their appeal to the
populace, and at this bar that appeal was more successful.[13]
On the 16th May, Perrin returned to the Council with a larger number of followers,
chiefly fishermen and boatmen, armed with huge double-handled swords.[14] This
motley host was dismissed with the same answer as before. The malcontents paraded
the streets all day, calling on the citizens to bestir themselves, and save the town,
which was on the eve of being sacked by the foreigners. The better class of citizens
paid no attention to this cry of “The wolf!” and remained quiet in their homes; but the
ranks of the rioters were swelled by numbers of the lower orders, whose patriotism
had been stimulated by the free rations of wine and food which were served out to
them.[15]
On Friday, the 18th May, the heads of the party met in a tavern with a certain number,
says Bonivard, of “brawling companions.” The more moderate, who may be
presumed to have been also the more sober, were for convoking the Council-General;
but the more violent [16] would hear of nothing but the massacre of all the refugees of
religion, and their supporters. The Sunday following, when the citizens would be all at
church,[17] was fixed on for the execution of this horrible plot.
The eagerness of the Libertines to consummate their crime caused the plot to
miscarry. The very next night after their meeting, the fumes of the wine, we may
charitably believe, not having as yet exhaled, the mob-patriots rushed into the street
with arms in their hands to begin their dreadful work. “The French, the French,” they
shouted, “are taking the town! Slay all, slay all!” But not one of the refugees was to
be seen. “The Lord,” says Calvin, “had poured a deep sleep upon them.” But the other
citizens rushed armed into the street. There was a great uproar, shouts, cries, and
clashing of arms; but fortunately the affray passed without bloodshed. “God,” says
Ruchat, “who watches over the affairs of men, and who wished to preserve Geneva,
did not permit Perrin to accomplish his design.”[18]
The Council assembled in a few days, and then measures were taken to bring the
seditious to punishment, and prevent the peace of the city being broken by similar
outrages in time to come. Four heads fell beneath the axe. Perrin’s also would have
fallen, had he not timeously cared for its safety by flight. With him fled all those who
felt that they were too deeply compromised to presume on pardon. The rest were
banished, and found refuge on the territory of Bern. The issue of this affair
determined the future fortunes of Geneva.
From being a nest of Libertines, who would have speedily wasted their own and their
city’s strength by their immoral principles and their disorderly lives, and who would
have plunged Geneva into its former vassalage, riveting more hopelessly than ever its
old yoke upon its neck, this small but ancient town was, by this turn of affairs,
rescued to become the capital of Protestantism - the metropolis of a moral empire.
Here, not in state, like a Roman cardinal, but in the lowliness of a simple pastor,
dwelt, not the monarch of that empire - for monarch it has not on earth - but the
presiding mind, the directing genius of Protestantism. From this centre were
126
propagated those energies and influences which, mightier than armies, were rending
the shackles from the human soul, and calling nations from their tomb. Within its
walls the elite of Europe was assembling; and as another and yet another illustrious
stranger presented himself at its gates, and crossed its threshold, the brilliant
intellectual glory of Geneva gathered an additional brightness, and its moral potency
waxed stronger day by day. To it all eyes were turned, some in admiration and love,
others in hatred and fear. Within it were born those great thoughts which, sent forth in
letters, in pamphlets, in great tomes, were as light to roll back the darkness - bolts to
discomfit the enemy, and pour confusion upon the champions of error. Protestant
troops are continually passing out at its gates, girded only with the sword of the Spirit,
to assail the strongholds of darkness, and add new provinces to the kingdom of the
Gospel. As realm after realm is won, there goes forth from this same city a rescript for
its organization and government; and that rescript meets an obedience more prompt
and hearty than was ever accorded to the edicts sent forth from the proud mistress of
the ancient world for the moulding of those provinces which her arms had subjugated.
What an astonishing phenomenon must the sudden rise of this little town have
appeared to the men of those times! How portentous to the friends of the Old religion!
It had not been built up by human hands; it was not defended by human weapons; yet
here it stood, a great lighthouse in the centre of Christendom, a mother of Churches, a
nurse of martyrs, a school of evangelists, an impregnable asylum of the persecuted, a
font of civilization, an abode of letters and arts; a great moral tribunal, where the
actions of all men were weighed, and in whose inexorably just and righteous awards
men heard the voice of a higher tribunal, and were enabled to read by anticipation the
final judgment of posterity, and even that of the great Supreme.
This was what Calvin’s victory had brought him. He might well deem that it had not
been too dearly bought. Truly it was worth all the anxieties and insults he had borne,
all the toil and agony he had endured, all the supplications and tears he had poured out
to achieve it. Nine years had he been in gaining it, nine years were to be given him to
turn it to account.
127
CHAPTER 26
GENEVA AND ITS INFLUENCE IN EUROPE
Calvin had made good his foothold at last. He had fought for this little town as
conqueror never fought for mightiest empire, and now it was his own. Geneva had
been rescued from the base uses to which the Libertines had destined it, and was now
consecrated to the noblest of all ends. It was to be, not the head-quarters of a
philosophy that would have demoralised Christendom, but the temple of a faith that
was to regenerate and exalt it. It was to be, not the beacon to lure to the whirlpool of
revolution, but the light that would guide the nations to the haven of stability and
glory.
The Reformer had now peace. But his condition can be justly styled peace only when
compared with the tempests of the nine previous years. Of these he had feelingly and
compendiously said, “that while everywhere the Church was agitated, at Geneva it
was tossed as was the Ark on the billows.” It was a true description; but the calm had
come at last. The Ark had found its Ararat, and now within that city, for the
possession of which two interests had so stoutly contended, the fierce winds had gone
down, and the waves had subsided into rest.
Calvin now proceeded to make Geneva fit for the grand purposes for which he had
destined her. And Geneva willingly surrendered herself to be fashioned as the
Reformer wished; her life she permitted to be absorbed in his life, feeling that, with
him was inseparably bound up her order, her grandeur, nay, her very existence, so far
as concerned every good and useful object. Her law, her Council, her citizens, all
tacitly consented to be parts of the great Reformer - the ministries through which he
operated on Christendom. We have the testimony of a noble eye-witness to the state
of Geneva at this period. “In my heart,” says Knox, in a letter to his friend Mr. Locke,
“I could have wished, yea, and can not cease to wish, that it might please God to
guide and conduct you to this place, where I neither fear nor shame to say is the most
perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the apostles. In
other places I confess Christ to be truly preached; but manners and religion to be so
sincerely reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place beside.[1] Farel bore similar
testimony to the flourishing condition of Geneva after its many perils. “I was lately at
Geneva,” he says, “and so delighted was I that I could scarce tear myself away. I
would rather be last in Geneva than first in any other place. Were I not prevented by
the Lord, and by my love for my congregation, nothing would hinder me from ending
my days there.” Drelincourt expressed the same admiration a hundred years after.[2]
If there was peace in the days of Calvin within Geneva, there were ambushes all
around. The first trouble was created by the banished Libertines. Bern took the part of
these exiles in the quarrel, declaring that they had been guilty of no crime, and
demanding of the Council and citizens of Geneva that they should give satisfaction to
those they had expelled, and receive them back. It may be conjectured that there was
in all this a little jealousy on the part of the powerful Bern of the rising glory of
Geneva. The little republic replied to this haughty demand by expelling the families of
the Libertines, and forbidding the return of the banished under pain of death. It was
now feared that the Libertines, supported by Bern, meditated re-entering Geneva by
force of arms. The territory of Bern bordered with that of Geneva, and the Libertines
stationed themselves on that part of it which lay nearest the city, and offered daily
128
menaces and petty annoyances. They resorted to the bridge of the Arve, and mocked
and jeered at the Genevese who had occasion to pass that way.[3] The citizens,
irritated beyond measure, were often on the point of rushing out and punishing these
insolences, but the Council restrained them.[4] The matter continued in an uneasy and
dangerous condition for some time, but a sudden turn in the politics of Europe, which
menaced both cities with a common danger, brought in the issue deliverance to
Geneva.
The battle of St. Quentin, in Normandy, was fought about this time. In this fight the
arms of Charles of Spain were victorious over those of Henry II. of France. Philibert
Emmanuel, Prince of Piedmont, who commanded the Spanish army, was the heir of
the titles and rights of his father Charles, Duke of Savoy; but he inherited the titles
only; the estates had gone from his house, and were now partly in the hands of the
King of France, and partly in possession of Bern, and other Swiss cantons. The
French king being now humbled, the Prince of Piedmont deemed this a favourable
moment for reclaiming his hereditary dominions. He issued an edict to that effect, and
immediately thereafter dispatched a body of eight thousand lanzknechts, or lancers, to
establish his authority over his former subjects. The alarm was great throughout
Switzerland, and more especially in Geneva and Bern. The Bernese had now other
things to think of than the quarrel into which the banished Libertines had led them.
This last matter gradually went to sleep; and thus Geneva, by this shifting in the great
European winds, was delivered without the necessity of striking a single blow.[5]
The affairs of Bolsec and Castalio belong to biography rather than to history. Both of
these men opposed Calvin on the doctrine of predestination. Both of them interrupted
him publicly when preaching in St. Peter’s. The Council had them seized, on the
ground of the maintenance of the public peace, rather than on the ground of difference
of doctrine. The result was that both were banished from Geneva, never to return.
This punishment, which has been laid at the door of the Reformer, has been
denounced as harsh. But we ought to keep in mind that Bolsec and Castalio were not
Genevese, banished from their native land; they were foreigners who had resided in
Geneva, the one a few years, the other only a few months.[6] “As to those who are
indignant that Bolsec should even have been banished,” says Bungener, “we know not
what to say to them, unless that they are completely ignorant how the question stood
in regard to the Reformation and to Geneva - especially to Geneva. To wish that she
had opened her gates to all the variations and daring flights of religious thought, is to
wish that that great lever, the Reformation, had without a fulcrum lifted the world.”[7]
Stationed just outside the French territory, the Reformer was able, from this citadel in
which God had placed him, to keep constant watch over the Protestant Church of
France. During the nine years he had yet to live, that Church was the object of his
daily care. He had found her in her cradle, and he nursed her into strength. It was for
his counsel she waited when any emergency arose, and it was to his voice and pen
that she looked for defence when danger threatened. She revered him as her father.
The first necessity of Christendom, in the opinion of Calvin, was the Gospel.
Accordingly, it was one of his chief labours to prepare, in the school of Geneva,
qualified preachers who should go forth, and sow everywhere the seed of the
kingdom. Many of these missionaries selected France as their field of labour. Thither
were they followed by the instructions and prayers of the great chief from whose feet
they had gone forth; and the consciousness that his eye was upon them, helped to
129
make them zealous in labour and courageous in death, which so many of them were
called to endure in the discharge of their ministry. We have two proofs that great
numbers offered themselves to this most inviting but very hazardous field. The first is
the letter which the King of France, Charles IX., in January, 1561, sent to Geneva,
complaining of the preachers who had come from thence, and calling upon the
Council to recall them. The second is the letter of Calvin to Bullinger, in the May
following, which reveals incidentally what a powerful propaganda Geneva had
become, and shows us the soldiers of the Cross daily setting out from her gates to
spread the triumphs of the Gospel. “It is incredible,” writes Calvin, “with what ardour
our friends devote themselves to the spread of the Gospel. As greedily as men before
the Pope solicit him for benefices, do they ask for employment in the Churches
beneath the Cross. They besiege my door to obtain a portion of the field to cultivate.
Never had monarch courtiers more eager than mine. They dispute about the stations as
of the kingdom of Jesus Christ was peaceably established in France.
Sometimes I seek to restrain them. I show to them the atrocious edict which orders the
destruction of every house in which Divine service shall have been celebrated. I
remind them that in more than twenty towns the faithful have been massacred by the
populace.[8] In those happy days - happy although stakes were blazing - it seemed as
if the ancient saying was reversed, and that no longer were the labourers few. No
wonder that Calvin for once breaks into enthusiasm, and gives vent to his joy. But we
do the Reformer only justice when we say that he rejoiced not because he was leader,
but because his soldiers were devoted. They were men worthy of their captain.
The success of these Evangelists entailed new labours and responsibilities on the
Reformer. The Churches which they planted had to be organised. These new
communities came to Geneva for the principles of their constitution, and the model of
their government. If Geneva bore the likeness of Calvin, France now began to bear the
likeness of Geneva. Thus the cares of the Reformer were multiplied and his labours
increased as he grew older, he lived two lives in one. The life passed in communion
with God, and in the study of His Word, in his closet, fed and sustained that other life
of intense and practical activity which he led before the world. From the
contemplation of the laws of the kingdom of Christ as laid down in the Bible, he rose
up to apply these, as he believed, in the arrangement of living Churches, and in the
scheme of policy which he enjoined on the now powerful Protestant body of France.
His counsels on this head expressed a lofty wisdom, which was not appreciated at the
time, but the three centuries that have since elapsed have set their seal upon it. All his
authority and eloquence were put forth to make the Protestants eschew politics, shun
the battle-field, and continue to fight their great war with spiritual weapons only. The
Reformer foresaw for the Church of France a glorious future, if only she should
persevere in this path. He had no faith in blood shed in battle: no, not in victorious
battle; but he had unbounded faith in blood shed at the stake of martyrdom. Give him
martyrs - not men in arms - and France was won. Not one letter of Calvin is extant in
which he recommends a contrary course. His advice to the Protestants of France was
to wait, to have patience, to submit to wrong, to abstain from revenging themselves,
and not to be sparing of their blood, for every drop spilt would, he assured them, bring
them nearer the goal they wished to reach. Nor were these counsels given to a small
and weak party, which by resisting might bring destruction upon itself: they were
addressed to a body now approximating in numbers half the population of France.
130
They were given to a body which had in its ranks men of wealth, nobles, and even
princes of the blood: a body that could raise soldiers, lead armies, fight battles, and
win victories. Well, but, says Calvin, the victories of the battlefield are barren; those
of the martyr are always fruitful. One of the latter is worth a score of the former.
Two letters have been forged with intent to convict the Reformer of having prompted
to the violent courses which some fiery spirits among tha French Protestants were
now beginning to pursue. The pretended original manuscripts are in the archives of
the family of D’Alisac, but their spuriousness has been abundantly proved.[9] They
are neither in the handwriting of Calvin nor in that of any of his known secretaries;
and they are, moreover, disfigured by gross literary errors, by coarse and violent
epithets, and by glaring anachronisms. “In the first, M. du Poet is called general of the
religion in Dauphine, and this letter is dated 1547, a period in which the Reformed
religion had in Dauphine neither a soldier nor an organised Church, and in which M.
du Poet was still a Romanist! In the second letter, dated 1561, the same person is
called Governor of Montelimart, and High Chamberlain of Navarre, dignities with
which he was not invested till long after the death of Calvin.[10]
Attempts have also been made to connect the Reformer with the raid of the notorious
Baron des Ardrets. This man signalised his short career as a Protestant by invading
the district of Lyons, slaughtering Romanists, sacking churches, making booty of the
priestly vestments and the sacred vessels, and appropriating some of the cathedrals for
the Protestant worship. Did Calvin account these acquisitions a gain to Protestantism?
Better, he said, worship in the open air, in dens of the earth, anywhere, than in
edifices so acquired. He wrote to Ardrets, sharply reproving him, and condemning the
outrages by which he had disgraced the holy cause, for the sake of which he professed
to have wrought them. A similar judgment did the Reformer pronounce on the
conspiracy of Areboise, that ill-omened commencement of political Protestantism in
France. “Better,” he said, writing to the head of that conspiracy, La Renaudie, “Better
we should all perish a hundred times than be the cause of exposing the Gospel to such
a disgrace.”[11]
But day and night he was intent on marshalling the spiritual host, and leading it to the
combat. Evangelists, martyrs, Churches: these were the three arms - to use a military
phrase - with which he carried on the war.
Of the skill and pains which he devoted to the preparation of the latter weapon - the
organization of Churches - we give but one example. For forty years the
evangelization of France had been going on. There were now small congregations in
several of its towns. In May, 1559, eleven ministers assembled in Paris, and
constituted themselves into a National Synod. This affair will come before us more
fully afterwards; we notice it here as necessary to the complete view of the work of
Calvin. His plastic hand it was that communicated to the French Protestants that
organization which we see assumed at first by a mere handful of pastors, but which
was found to be equally adapted to that mighty Church of thousands of congregations
which, ten years thereafter, was seen covering the soil of France.
First came a Confession of Faith. This was the basis on which the Church was to
stand, the root which was to sustain her life and growth.
131
Next came a scheme of discipline. This was meant to develop and conserve that new
life which ought to spring from the doctrines confessed. Morality - in other words,
holiness - was in Calvin’s opinion the one thing essential in Churches.
Lastly came a graduated machinery of courts, for applying that discipline or
government, in order to the conservation and development of that morality which the
Reformer judged to be the only result of any value. This machinery was as follows: There was first the single congregation, or Church of the locality, with its pastor and
small staff of associated rulers. This was the foundation. Over the Church of a locality
were placed the Churches of the district. Each congregation sent its pastor and an
elder to form this court, which was termed the Colloquy. Over the Colloquy were the
Churches of the province, termed the Conference; and over the Conference were the
Churches of all France, or National Synod.
This constitution was essentially democratic. The whole body of the people - that is,
the members of the Church - were the primary depositaries of this power; but its
exercise was narrowed at each gradation upwards. It began with the local
congregation, which, through their pastor and elders, decided on all matters
appertaining to themselves. Thence it passed to the Colloquy, which adjudicated on
general questions, and on cases of appeal. It proceeded upwards through the
Provincial Conference to the National Synod, which was the most select body of all,
being constituted of two pastors and two elders from each province. The National
Synod passed sentence in the last resort, and from its decision there was of course no
appeal.
If the basis of this government was broad, being composed of the whole body of the
people, it had for its apex the very elite of the clergy and laity. Liberty was secured,
but so too were order, vigour, and justice. For the decision of the most important
questions it reserved the highest talents and the maturest wisdom. It combined the
advantages of a democracy with those of a monarchy. Its foundations were as wide
and popular as the constitution of England, but counterpoised by the weight and
influence of the National Synod, even as the government of England is by the dignity
and power of the Crown.
Calvin did not carry his narrowing process the length of a single overseer or bishop.
Not that he held it unlawful to place over the Church a chief pastor, or that he
believed that the Bible condemned the office of bishop in itself. He recommended an
episcopate to the Church of Poland:[12] he allowed the office of bishop in the Church
of England;[13] and he has so expressed himself in his Institutes, as to leave the
Church at liberty on this head. But he thought he could more clearly trace in the New
Testament such a distribution of power as that which he had now made, and, at all
events, this equality of office he deemed much safer at present for the Church of
France, for which he foresaw a long period of struggles and martyrdoms. He would
not expose that Church to seduction by opening to her ministers the path of official or
personal aggrandisement. The fewer the dignities and grandeurs with which they were
encompassed, the more easy would they find it to mount the scaffold; and it was
martyrs, not mitred chiefs, that were destined, he believed, to lead the Church to
victory.
132
The organization of the Church of France brought with it a new era to Protestantism
in that kingdom. From this time forward its progress was amazingly rapid. Nobles and
burgesses, cities, and whole provinces pressed forward to join its ranks.
Congregations sprang up in hundreds, and adherents flocked to them in tens of
thousands. The entire nation bade fair soon to terminate its divisions and strifes in a
common profession of the Protestant faith. Such was the spectacle that cheered the
last years of Calvin. What a profound thankfulness - we do not say pride, for pride he
banished as sinful in connection with such a cause - must have filled the bosom of the
Reformer, when he reflected that not only was the little city of Geneva, which he had
won for the Gospel in order that through it he might win mightier realms, preserved
from overthrow in the midst of hostile powers, but that it had become the centre of a
spiritual empire whose limits would far exceed, and whose duration would long outlast, the empire of Charles!
133
CHAPTER 27
THE ACADEMY OF GENEVA
In the wake of the Gospel, learning and the arts, Calvin held, should ever be found.
Geneva had become, in the first place, a fountain of Divine knowledge to the
surrounding countries; he would make it, in the second place, a fountain of science
and civilization. In Italy, letters came first; but in England, in Bohemia, in Germany,
and now in Geneva, the Divine science opened the way, and letters and philosophy
followed. It was drawing towards the evening of his life, when Calvin laid the
foundations of the Academy of Geneva. Next to the Reformation, this school was the
greatest boon that he conferred on the republic which had only lately enrolled his
name among its citizens. It continued long after he was dead to send forth
distinguished scholars, in every department of science, and to shed a glory on the little
State in which it was planted,[1] and where previous to the Reformation scarcely one
distinguished man was to be found.
The idea of such an institution had long been before the mind of Calvin, and he
wished not to die till he had realised it. Having communicated his design to the
Council, it was approved of by their Excellencies, and in 1552 a piece of ground was
purchased on which to erect the necessary buildings. But money was lacking. Geneva
was then a State of but from 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. Its burdens were numerous.
It had to exercise hospitality to from one to two thousand refugees. It had to endure
the expenses of war in a time of peace, owing to the continual rumours set on foot that
the city was about to be assaulted. After satisfying these indispensable demands, the
citizens had not much money to spare. For six years the ground on which the future
college was to stand lay untouched; not a sod was turned, not a stone was laid.
Impatient at this delay, and thinking that he had waited long enough on the Council,
Calvin now set on foot a public subscription, and soon he found himself in possession
of 10,000 florins. This was little for the object, but much for the times. He
immediately laid the foundations of the edifice. He marked with joy the rising walls;
tearing himself from his studies, he would descend from the Rue des Chanoines to the
scene of operations, and though enfeebled by quartan-ague he might be seen dragging
himself over the works, speaking kindly words now and again to the workmen, and
stimulating them by expressing his satisfaction at their progress. Two edifices were
rising at the same moment under the eye of the Reformer. The organization of the
French Protestant Church and the building of the Academy went on together. On the
5th of June, 1559, just eleven days after the meeting of the National Synod in Paris,
the college was ready to receive both masters and pupils. The inauguration was
celebrated by a solemn service in St. Peter’s, at which the senators, the ministers, and
the burgesses attended. After prayer by Calvin, and a Latin address by Beza, the laws
and statutes of the college, the confession to be subscribed by the students, and the
oath to be taken by the rector and masters were read aloud. Theodore Beza was
appointed rector; five masterships - Calvin had asked seven - one of Hebrew, one of
Greek, one of philosophy, and two of theology, were instituted. In 1565, a year after
the death of the Reformer, there was added a lectureship in law. With her Academy which, however, was but the top-stone of a subsidiary system of instruction which
was to prepare for the higher - Geneva was fitter than ever for the great spiritual and
moral sovereignty which Calvin intended that she should exercise in Europe.[2]
134
Bungener’s description of this memorial is as touching as his reflections are just.
“After their venerable cathedral,” says he, “no building is dearer to the Genevese; if
you go upstairs to the class-rooms, you are in the rooms of the library - full of
memorials yet more living and particular. There you will be shown the books of
Calvin’s library, the mute witnesses of his vigils, his sufferings, and his death; there
you will turn over the leaves of his manuscripts, deciphering, not without difficulty, a
few lines of his feverish writing, rapid as his thoughts; and, if your imagination will
but lend itself to the breathing appeals of solitude and silence, there he himself is; you
will behold him gliding among those ancient walls, pale, but with a sparkling eye feeble and sickly, but strong in that inner energy, the source of which was in his faith.
There also will appear to you, around him, all those of whom he was to be the father divines, jurists, philosophers, scholars, statesmen, and men of war, all filled with that
mighty life which he was to bequeath to the Reformation, after having received it
from her. And if you ask the secret of his power, one of the stones of the college will
tell it you in a few Hebrew words, which the Reformer had engraved upon it. Come
into the court. Enter beneath that old portico which supports the great staircase, and
you will read - The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And it is neither on
the wall nor on one of the pillars that these words are engraved. Mark well: it is on the
key-stone. What an emblem! and what a lesson!”[3]
The position which Calvin now filled was one of greater influence than perhaps any
one man had exercised in the Church of Christ since the days of the apostles. He was
the counsellor of kings; he was the adviser of princes and statesmen; he corresponded
with warriors, scholars, and Reformers; he consoled martyrs, and organised Churches;
his admonitions were submitted to, and his letters treasured, as marks of no ordinary
distinction. All the while the man who wielded this unexampled influence, was in life
and manners in nowise different from an ordinary citizen of Geneva. He was as
humbly lodged, he was as simply clothed, and he was served by as few attendants as
any burgess of them all. He had been poor all his days, and he continued so to the end.
One day a cardinal of the Roman Church, Sadoleto, who happened to be passing
through Geneva, would pay him the honour of a visit. He was conducted to No. 122,
Rue des Chanoines, and told to his surprise that this was the house of the Reformer. A
yet greater surprise awaited the cardinal, he knocked for entrance: there was no porter
at the gate; no servant in livery gave him admission: it was Calvin himself that opened
the door.
His enemies, more just to him then than they have been since, acknowledged and
admired his indifference to money. “That which made the strength of that heretic,”
said Plus IV., when told of his death, “was that money was nothing to him.” The
Pontiff was correct in his fact, but at fault in his philosophy. Calvin’s strength was
rooted in a far higher principle, and his indifference to riches was but one of the fruits
of that principle; but how natural the reflection on the part of one who lived in a city
where all men were venal, and all things vendible!
The Reformer’s wants were few. During the last seven years of his life he took only
one meal a day, sometimes one in the thirty-six hours.[4] His charities were great; the
Protestant exiles were ever welcome to his table; kings, sometimes, were borrowers
from him, and his small stipend left him often in pecuniary difficulties. But he never
asked the Council for an increase of his emoluments; nay, he positively refused such
when offered.
135
“Satisfied with my humble condition,” was the witness which he bore to himself, in
the place where he lived, and before the eyes of all, a little while before his death, “I
have ever delighted in a life of poverty, and am a burden to no one. I remain
contented with the office which the Lord has given me.”[5] The Registers of the
Council of Geneva bear to this day the proofs of his disinterestedness and
forgetfulness of self. In January, 1546, the Council is informed of the sickness of M.
Calvin, “who hath no resources.” The Council votes him ten crowns, but; M. Calvin
sends them back. The councillors buy with the ten crowns a cask of good wine, and
convey it to Calvin’s house. Not to give offence, the Reformer accepts their
Lordships’ gift, but lays out ten crowns of his salary “for the relief of the poorest
ministers.” In the winter of 1556 the Council sent him some firewood. Calvin
appeared with the price, but could not induce the Council to accept of it.[6] The
Registers of 1560 inform us of another cask of wine sent to M. Calvin, “seeing that he
has none good.”[7] The Reformer this time accepts; and yet, because he received
these few presents in the course of a ministry of twenty-six years, there have not been
wanting men who accused him of coveting such gifts, and of parading his ailments, of
which indeed he seldom or never spoke, in order to evoke these benefactions. “If there
are any,” said he, in his Preface to the Psalms, “whom, in my lifetime, I can not
persuade that I am not rich and moneyed, my death will show it at last.” In his last
illness he refused his quarter’s salary, saying that he had not earned it.[8] After his
death it was found that his whole possessions did not exceed in value 225 dollars,[9]
and if his illness had been prolonged, he would have had to sell his books, or receive
the money of the republic. On the 25th of April, about a month before his death, the
Reformer made his will. Luther’s will was highly characteristic, Calvin’s is not less
so. It exhibits the methodical and business habits that marked his whole life, mingled
with the humble, holy hope that filled his heart. Having disposed of the 225 crowns,
and of some other small matters pertaining to the world he was leaving, he thus breaks
out: “I thank God that he has not only had mercy on his poor creature, having delivered
me from the abyss of idolatry, but that he has brought me into the clear light of his
Gospel, and made me a partaker of the doctrine of salvation, of which I was altogether
unworthy; yea, that his mercy and goodness have borne so tenderly with my
numerous sins and offences, for which I deserved to be cast from him and destroyed.”
136
CHAPTER 28
THE SOCIAL AND FAMILY LIFE OF GENEVA
Now that Calvin has realised his program, let us look at the social and family life of
the Genevese. The “Christian Idea,” as Gaberel calls it, had created their State, and
religion was the all-pervading and dominant element in it. Calvin, the people, the
State - all three were one, the fusion was complete, and the policy of the Senate, and
the action of the citizens, were but the results of that great principle which had called
into existence this marvellous community. The “Sermon” held a first place among
their institutions. Day by day it reinvigorated that spirit which was the “breath” of
Geneva. But, besides the need the Genevans felt of the instructions and consolations
of religion, there were other influences that acted in drawing them to the temples.
Preaching was then a novelty. Like break of day in an Eastern clime, the Gospel, in
mid-day effulgence, had all at once burst on these men after the darkness of the
Middle Ages. Scarce had the first faint silvery streaks shown themselves, when lo! the
full flood of the sun’s light was poured upon them. The same generation which had
listened to the monks, had now the privilege of listening to the Reformers. From tales,
legends, and miracles, which were associated in their minds with the yoke of foreign
masters, they passed to the pure and elevating doctrines of the Word of God, which,
apart from their own beauty and majesty, were, they knew, the source whence had
come their political and civil independence. We at this day can but faintly realize the
charm that must then have hung round the pulpit, and which assembled, day after day,
the Genevese in crowds, to the preaching of the Gospel.
At Geneva, the magistrate as well as the artisan invariably began the day with an act
of worship. At six in the morning the churches were opened, and crowds might be
seen in every quarter of the city on their way to spend an hour in listening to the
“Exposition.” After this the youth assembled in school or college, and the father and
the elder sons repaired to the workshops. The mid-day repast, which was taken in
common with the domestics, again re-united the family. After dinner the head of the
household paid a short visit to his club [1] to hear the news. And what were the events
on which the Genevan kept his eyes intently fixed, and for which he waited from day
to day with no ordinary anxiety to receive tidings? The great drama in progress
around him completely occupied his thoughts. How goes the battle, he would ask,
between Protestantism and Rome in France, in Italy, in Spain? Has any fresh edict of
persecution issued these days past from the Vatican? Has any one been called to yield
up his life on the scaffold, and what were his last words? What number of refugees
have arrived in our city since yesterday, and through what perils and sufferings have
they managed to reach our gates? Such were the topics that furnished matter of daily
talk to the Genevese. The narrow limits of their little State were far from forming their
horizon. Their thoughts and sympathies were as extensive as Christendom. There was
not a prisoner, not a martyr for the Gospel in any of its countries for whom they did
not feel and pray; he was their brother. Not a reverse befell the cause of the Reform in
any part of the field which they did not mourn, nor a success in which they did not
rejoice. They were watching a battle which would bring triumph or overthrow, not to
Geneva only, but to the Gospel; hence the gravity and greatness of their characters.
“The Genevan of that day,” says Gaberel, “took the same interest in the news of the
kingdom of God, which he takes today in the discussion of material affairs.”[2]
137
The family life of the Genevans at that period was characterised by severe simplicity.
Their dress was wholly without ornament. The magistrates wore cloth; the ordinary
burgess contented himself with serge. This difference in their attire was not held as
marking any distinction of class among the citizens, for the members of the Councils
were chosen entirely with reference to their merit, and in nowise from any
consideration of birth or wealth. Nor did this avoidance of superfluities lead to any
falling off in the industrial activity or the inventive skill of the citizens. On the
contrary, the arts and industries flourished, and both the citizens of Geneva, and the
refugees who found asylum within it, became famous for their manufacture of objects
of utility and luxury, which they exported to other countries.
If their dress was marked by plainness, not less were their tables by frugality. The rich
and poor alike were obliged to obey the sumptuary laws. “The heads of families,”
says Gaberel, “seeing the ease, the health, the good order, the morality that now
reigned in their dwellings, blessed those rigorous laws, which only gourmands found
tyrannical, who remembered with regret the full tables of other days.”[3] We dare say
some of these men would have wished rather that their dinners had been ampler,
though their liberty had been less. They are not the first who have thought the blessing
of freedom too dearly purchased if bought with the sacrifice of dainties.
When periods of distress came round, occasioned by war or famine, the citizens were
especially sensible of the benefit of this simple and frugal manner of life. They felt
less the privations they had then to bear, and were able to support with dignity the
misfortunes of the State. Moreover, as the result of this economy, the wealth of the
citizens was rapidly developed, and the State reached a prosperity it had never known
in former days. Each citizen laid by religiously a certain portion of his earnings, and
the years of greatest calamity were precisely those that were signalized by the greatest
beneficence. Instead of receiving support from other States, Geneva sent its charities
to the countries around, becoming a storehouse of earthly as of heavenly bread to the
nations. These citizens, who wore plain blouses, and sat down to a meal
correspondingly plain, entertained during many years, with liberal Christian
hospitality, the refugees of religion - nobles, scholars, statesmen, and men of birth.
The Genevan citizen, independent in means, and adding thereto that mental
independence which the Gospel gives, could not but be a being of conscious dignity,
and of character inherently grand, whom no call of devotion or heroism would find
unprepared.
Geneva profited immensely in another way by the movement, of which it had become
the headquarters. The men who crowded to it, and to whom it so hospitably opened its
gates, conferred on it greater advantages than any they received from it. They were of
every rank, profession, and trade, and they brought to the city of their adoption, not
refinement of birth and elegance of letters only, but also new arts and improved
industries. There immediately ensued a great quickening of the energies of labour and
skill in Geneva, and these brought in their turn that wealth and conscious dignity
which labour and skill never fail to impart. It is a new nation that we behold forming
on the soil of the republic, with germs and elements in its bosom, higher and more
various than infant State had ever before enjoyed. The fathers of the great Roman
people were but a band of outlaws and adventurers! How different the men we now
see assembling on the shores of the Leman to lay the foundations of the Rome of
Protestantism, from those who had gathered at the foot of the Capitoline to lay the
138
first stone in the Eternal City! From the strand of Naples to the distant shores of
Scotland, we behold Protestantism weeding out of the surrounding countries, and
assembling at this great focus, all who were skilful in art, as well as illustrious in
virtue, and they communicated to Geneva a refinement of manners and an artistic skill
which it continues to retain after the lapse of three centuries.
The most important question raised by the arrival of these exiles was not, Where shall
bread be found for them? The hospitality of the Genevese solved this difficulty, for
scarce was there citizen who had not one or more of these strangers living under his
roof, and sitting at his table. The question which the Genevese had most at heart was,
how shall we utilize this great access of intellectual, moral, and industrial power?
How shall we draw forth the varied capabilities of these men in the way of
strengthening, enriching, and glorifying the State? Let us begin, said they, by
enrolling them as citizens. “But,” said the Libertines, when the proposal was first
mooted, “is it fair that newcomers should lay down the law to the children of the
land? These men were not born on the soil of the republic.”
True, it was answered, but then the republic is not an affair of acres, it is an affair of
faith. The true Geneva is Protestantism, and these men were born into the State in the
same hour in which they became Protestants. This broad view of the question
prevailed. Nevertheless, the honour was sparingly distributed. Up till 1555, only
eighty had received the freedom of the city; in the early part of that year, other sixty
were added [4] - a small number truly when we think how numerous the Protestant
exiles were. The greatest of all the sons of Geneva, he who was more than a citizen,
who was the founder of the State, was not legally enrolled till five years before his
death. The name of John Knox was earlier inscribed on the Registers than that of John
Calvin. Hardly was there a country in Europe which did not help to swell this truly
catholic roll. The list contributed by Italy alone was a long and brilliant one. Lucca
sent, among other distinguished names, the Calendrini, the Burlamachi, the Turretini,
and the Micheli.[5] Of these families many took root in Geneva, and by the services
which they rendered the State, and the splendour their genius shed upon it in afterdays, they repaid a hundred-fold as citizens the welcome they had received as
refugees. Others returned to their native land when persecution had abated. “When the
English returned,” says Misson, “they left in the Register, which is still preserved, a
list of their names and qualities - Stanley, Spencer, Musgrave, Pelham, are among the
first in it, as they ought to be. The title of citizen, which several had obtained, was
continued to them by an order and compliment of the Seigniory, so that several earls
and peers of England may as well boast of being citizens of Geneva as Paul did of
being a citizen of Rome.”
One of the most striking characteristics of the Geneva of that day, and for a century
after, especially to one coming from a Popish country, was its Sabbath. The day
brought a complete cessation of labour to all classes: the field was unwatered by the
sweat of the husbandman, the air was unvexed by the hammer of the artisan, and the
lake was unploughed by the keel of the fisherman. The great bell of St. Peter’s has
sounded out its summons, the citizens have assembled in the churches, the city gates
have been closed, and no one is allowed to enter or depart while the citizens are
occupied in offering their worship.
Everywhere the stillness of the sacred day is sublime, but here that sublimity was
enhanced by the grandeur of the region. The Sabbath seemed to shed its own pure and
139
peaceful splendour upon the sublimities of nature, and these sublimities, in their turn,
seemed to impart an additional sanctity and majesty to the Sabbath. There was peace
on the blue waveless Leman; there was peace on those plains that enclosed it in their
vast sweep, and on whose bosom the chalet lay hid amid festooned vines and tall
pine-trees. There was peace on the green rampart of the Jura, and peace on the distant
Alps, which in the opposite quarter of the horizon lift their snowy piles into the sky,
and stand silent and solemn as worshippers. A superb temple, indeed, seems the
region, walled in by natural grandeurs, and pervaded throughout with a Sabbatic
peace. In the midst of it is the little city of Geneva. No stirs or tumults are heard
within it; its bells and its psalms only salute the ear. Beaming faces, the sign of happy
hearts, tell what a clay of gladness it is - the most gladsome of all the seven. In every
dwelling is heard “the melody of health.” But we must go to St. Peter’s, would we see
in its highest manifestation the power of the Sabbath to raise the souls and mould the
characters of a people. A crowd of magnanimous, earnest, intelligent faces look up
around the pulpit. There are gathered the finest intellects and holiest spirits of all
Christendom, for whatever was noble and pure in other countries had been chased
thither. The worship of men like these could be no common affair, no mere show or
pantomime, like that performed in bespangled vestments amid lighted tapers. The
worshippers in St. Peter’s were men whose souls had been attempered in the fire, and
who, having forsaken all worldly goods for the sake of the Gospel, stood prepared
every hour to sacrifice life itself. Their worship was the worship of the heart, and their
prayer the prayer of faith that pierces the heavens.
And as the devotion of the hearers was entire, so the instructions of the pulpit were
lofty. The preacher might not be always eloquent, but he was never tame. He forgot
himself and remembered only his great theme. Did he discourse on some point of
doctrine, his exposition was clear, his words weighty; did he plead the cause of the
confessors of other lands, “led as sheep to the slaughter,” it was with a truthfulness
and pathos that made his hearers mingle their tears with his, and prepared them to
open their doors to such of the persecuted as might escape the prisons and stakes
which their enemies had prepared for them. Such were the scenes that might be
witnessed every Sabbath in those days within the walls of St. Peter’s, Geneva. If
Geneva was the “inner Bureau” of the European Reformation, as Gaberel says, the
pulpit was the inner spring of power in that “Bureau.” While the pulpit of Geneva
stood, Geneva would stand; if the pulpit should fall, Geneva too would fall. It was the
buhvark of its liberties, the “horses and chariots” that guarded the independence of the
State. It was at the fire, which burned continually on this altar, that the men of Geneva
kindled the torch of liberty, and their love of liberty daily recruited that indomitable
firmness which so perplexed and mortified Philip II. in the Escurial, and the Pope in
the Vatican, and many others besides, who never warred against the little State save to
be broken upon it.
140
CHAPTER 29
CALVIN’S LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH
To the Reformer the close was now near. His body, never robust, had become latterly
the seat of numerous maladies, that made life a prolonged torture. The quartan-ague
of 1559 he had never recovered from. He was afflicted with pains in his head, and
pains in his limbs. Food was often nauseous to him. He suffered front asthma, and
spitting of blood. He had to sustain the attacks of the gout, and the yet more
excruciating agony of the stone. Amid the ruins of his body, his spirit was fresh, and
clear, and vigorous as ever; but as the traveller quickens his steps when the evening
begins to fall, and the shadows to lengthen, Calvin redoubled his efforts, if so, before
breathing his last, he might make that legacy of wisdom and truth he was to leave to
the Church still more complete and perfect. His friends in many lands wrote imploring
him to take a little rest. Calvin saw rest - ever-lasting rest coming with the deepening
shadows, and continued to work on. Beza tells us that during his last malady he
translated from Latin into French his Harmony on Moses, revised the translation of
Genesis, wrote upon the Book of Joshua, and finally revised and corrected the greater
part of his annotations on the New Testament. He was all the while receiving and
answering letters from the Churches. He had but a little before given the last touches
to his immortal work, the Institutes. The last time he appeared in the pulpit was on the
6th of February, 1564.[1]
On that occasion he was seized with so violent a fit of coughing that it brought the
blood into his mouth, and stopped his utterance. As he descended the stairs, amid the
breathless stillness of his flock, all understood but too well that his last words in the
pulpit of St. Peter’s had been spoken. There followed weeks of intense suffering. To
the martyr when mounting the scaffold the Reformer had said, “Be strong, and play
the man:” during four months of suffering, not less severe than that of the scaffold,
was Calvin to display the heroism which he had preached to others. The more violent
attacks of his malady were indicated only by the greater pallor of his face, the
quivering of his lips, the tremulous motion of his clasped hands, and the halfsuppressed ejaculation, “O Lord! how long?” It was during these months of suffering
that he prosecuted the labours of which Beza, who was daily by his bedside, tells us in
the passage referred to above. A little cold water was often his only nourishment for
days, and having refreshed himself therewith, he would again resume work.
On this death-bed were riveted the eyes of all Christendom. Rome waited the issue of
his sickness with intense excitement, in the hope that it would rid her of her great foe.
The Churches of the Reformation asked with sorrowful and most affectionate anxiety
if their father was to be taken from their head. Meanwhile, as though to impress the
minds of men, and make a great mourning around this mighty bier, the plague broke
in, and inflicted unprecedented ravages on almost all the countries of Europe. It
traversed Germany, France, and Switzerland, “and men fell before it,” says Ruchat,
“as fall the leaves in autumn when the tempest sweeps through the forest.” This
pestilence was equally fatal on the mountain-top and in the low valley. In the
Tockenburg and other parts of Switzerland it entered hamlets and villages, where it
left behind it not one living man. In Basle it struck down seven thousand persons,
among whom were thirteen councillors, eight ministers, and five professors; among
the latter was the learned Cellarius. At Bern, from one to two thousand died. It visited
Zurich, and numbered among its victims Theodore Bibliander, the successor of
141
Zwingli. Bullinger was attacked, but recovered, though he had to mourn the loss of
his wife and two daughters. At Herisau, in the canton of Appenzell, there were
upwards of three thousand deaths. The Protestant congregations, in some cases,
assembled in the open air, and when they celebrated the Lord’s Supper, the
communicants in order to avoid infection, brought each his own cup, and made use of
it at the table. It was in the midst of the universal gloom created by these terrible
events that men waited from day to day for tidings from the sick-bed at Geneva.
Calvin longed to appear yet once again in that church where he had so often preached
the Gospel. “On the 2nd of April,” says Beza, “it being Easter-day, he was carried to
church in a chair. He remained during the whole sermon, and received the Sacrament
from my hand. He even joined, though with a trembling voice, the congregation in the
last hymn, ‘Lord, let thy servant depart in peace.’” He was carried out, Beza adds, his
face lighted up with a Christian joy.
Six days before (27th March) he had caused himself to be borne to the door of the
Council-chamber. Ascending the stairs, supported by two attendants, he entered the
hall, and proposed to the Senate a new rector for the school; then, taking off his
skullcap, he thanked their Excellencies for the kindness which he had experienced at
their hands, especially the friendship they had shown him during his last illness: “For
I feel,” he said, “that this is the last time that I shall stand here.” The tones of that
voice, now scarcely audible, must have recalled, to those who listened to it for the last
time, the many occasions on which it had been lifted up in this same place, sometimes
to approve, sometimes to condemn, but always to attest that he who spoke was the
fearless champion of what he believed to be truth, and the unbending and
incorruptible patriot. His adieu moved the Council to tears.[2]
A month after, he sent another message to the Council, intimating his desire to meet
its members yet once more before he should die. Having regard to his great weakness,
the Council resolved to visit him at his own house. Accordingly, on the 30th April, the
twenty-five Lords of Geneva, in all the pomp of a public ceremony, proceeded to his
humble dwelling in the Rue des Chanoines. Raising himself on his bed, he exhorted
them, amongst other things, to maintain ever inviolate the independence of a city
which God had destined to high ends. But he reminded them that it was the Gospel
which alone made Geneva worth preserving, and that therefore it behooved them to
guard its purity if they would preserve for their city the protection of a stronger arm
than their own. Commending them and Geneva to God, and begging them one and all,
says Beza, to pardon his faults, he held out his hand to them, which they grasped for
the last time, and retired as from the death-bed of a father.[3]
On the morrow he received the pastors. Most affectionate and touching was his
address. He exhorted them to diligence in their office as preachers, to show fidelity to
the flock, to cultivate affection for one another, and, above all, maintain the
Reformation and discipline which he had established in the Church. He reminded
them of the conflict he had had to wage in this matter, and the afflictions that had
befallen him, and how at length God had been pleased to crown his labours with
success. His many maladies and sicknesses, he said, had at times made him morose
and hard to please, and even irascible. For these failings he asked pardon, first of God,
and then of his brethren; and, “finally,” Beza adds, “he gave his hand to each, one
after the other, which was with such anguish and bitterness of heart in every one, that
I can not even recall it to mind without extreme sadness.”
142
The Council he had bidden farewell, his brethren he had bidden farewell, but there
was one friend, the oldest of all save Cordier, who had not yet stood at his death-bed
and received his last adieus. On the 2nd May, Calvin received a letter from Farel, in
which the writer intimated that he was just setting out to visit hint. Farel was now
nearly eighty. Could he not wait the little while till he had put off “this tabernacle,”
and then, with less difficulty to either, the two friends would meet? So it would seem
did Calvin think, and hence the letter he immediately dictated: - “Farewell, my best
and most faithful brother, since it is God’s will that you should survive me; live in the
constant recollection of our union, which, in so far as it was useful to the Church of
God, will still bear for us abiding fruit in heaven. I wish you not to fatigue yourself on
my account. My breath is weak, and I continually expect it to leave me. It is enough
for me that I live and die in Christ, who is gain to his people both in life and death.
Once more farewell to thee, and to all the brethren thy colleagues.”
A few days afterwards the Reformer saw the old man, covered all over with dust,
having walked from Neuchatel on foot, enter his sick-chamber.[4] History has not
recorded the words that passed between the two. “He had a long interview with him,”
says Ruchat, “and on the morrow took his departure for Neuchatel.” It was a long way
for one of eighty years, and yet surely it was meet that the man who had met Calvin at
the gate of Geneva, when he first entered it nearly thirty years before, should stand
beside him when about to depart. This time Farel may not stop him.[5]
Yet a few days more was the Reformer to pass on earth. The 19th of May, or the
Friday before Whit-Sunday, brought round the Censures, as they were called. The
pastors, on that day, met, and admonished each other fraternally, and afterwards
partook together of a modest meal. Calvin requested that the dinner should be
prepared at his house; and when the hour came he had himself carried into the room
where the repast was to be eaten. Seated amongst his colleagues, he said, “‘I am come
to see you, my brethren, for the last time; for, save this once, I shall never sit again at
table.’ Then he offered prayer, but not without difficulty, and ate a little,
“endeavouring,” says Beza. “to enliven us.” “But,” he continues, “before the end of
the meal, he requested to be carried back to his chamber, which was close by, saying
these words with as cheerful a face as he could - “A partition between us will not
prevent me, though absent in body, being present with you in spirit.’” He had spoken
truly. From the bed to which he had been carried he was to rise no more.
There remained yet eight days to the Reformer on earth. These were almost one
uninterrupted prayer. The fervency of his supplications was indicated not so much by
his voice, now scarcely audible, as by his eye, which, says Beza, “retained its
brightness to the last,” and testified to the faith and hope with which he was animated.
He had not yet left earth, and yet he had left it: for of earthly bread he ate not; with
men he had ceased to converse; he halted here, at the portal of the invisible world, to
calm, to elevate, and to strengthen his spirit, by converse with the Eternal, before
passing its awful but blessed threshold. It was now Saturday, the 27th of May. He
seemed to suffer less, and to speak with greater ease. But at eight o’clock of the
evening the sure signs of death became apparent. As he was repeating the words of
the apostle, “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with
the glory to be … without being able to finish, he breathed his last.[6] Beza, who had
been summoned to his bedside, was just in time to see him expire. “And thus,” says
he, “on this day, with the setting sun, the brightest light in the Church of God on earth
143
was taken back to heaven.” The event was briefly chronicled in the Consistorial
Register thus - “Went to God, Saturday, the 27th.”
Early on the day following, which was Sunday, the remains of the Reformer were
wrapped in a shroud and enclosed in a wooden coffin preparatory to interment. At two
o’clock the funeral took place. It differed in no respect from that of an ordinary
citizen, save in the much greater concourse of mourners. The body was followed to
the grave in Plain-palais - about 500 paces outside the city - by the members of the
Senate, the body of the clergy, the professors in the college, and by the citizens, and
many distinguished strangers; “not,” says Beza, “without many tears.” Over the grave
to which they had consigned so much - the Pastor, the Patriot, and the Reformer - they
raised no monument. Not a line did they write on marble or brass to tell the ages to
come who reposed in this grave, and what he had been to Christendom. They arranged
in reverent silence the dust above him, and departed. In this they but fulfilled Calvin’s
own wishes. He had enjoined that he should be buried “after the customary fashion;”
“and that customary fashion,” says Bungener, “which was observed down almost to
the present day, was that no monument should be raised upon any grave, however
illustrious the deceased might be.”[7] “He was buried,” says Ruchat, “with all
simplicity, in the common cemetery, as he himself had desired: so simply that no one
at this day knows where his grave is.” “For more than two centuries,” says Bungener,
“that grave has been dug over and over again, like the rest, by the sexton’s spade; and
for less than twenty years a black stone has marked the spot where Calvin perhaps
reposed, for it is only a tradition.[8]
But it is well, perhaps, that neither tomb nor monument was raised to Calvin.
Forgetting his dust we stand face to face with the living, thinking, deathless spirit, and
rise to a truer and sublimer ideal of the man. Death has not caused Calvin to retire; he
is still with us: he speaks to us in his works, he lives in the Churches which he
organized, and he prosecutes from century to century his vast plans in the continued
progress of that moral and spiritual empire which his genius and faith founded, or, to
speak more truly, restored. While that empire lives, Calvin will live.
144
CHAPTER 30
CALVIN’S WORK
When the tidings sped through Europe that Calvin was dead, the two great parties into
which Christendom was divided were very differently affected. The one gave way to
unbounded joy, the other was seized with nearly as unbounded sorrow. Rome, hearing
in the news the knell of Protestantism, confidently anticipated the immediate return of
the revolted countries to their obedience. “The man of Geneva,” as she termed the
Reformer, was no more. The arm which had so often smitten her legions, and chased
them from the field in disastrous rout, would never again be lifted up in battle; and
she had nothing more to do, in order to restore her Church to its former glory and
dominion, than simply to go forth and summon the Reforming ranks, now left without
a leader, to surrender. The Pope went so far as to nominate seven commissioners, who
were to proceed to Geneva on this business.[1] This step was taken with the advice,
amongst others, of Cardinal Boromeo and the Bishop of Anneci, who seem to have
persuaded the Pope that the Council and citizens of Geneva only waited for some such
embassage to abandon Protestantism, and bow as penitents and suppliants at the
footstool of the Papal throne. In truth they would have done so during Calvin’s lifetime, they insinuated, but for the extraordinary influence which that heretic exercised
over them. The issue of this affair was very far from answering the expectations of the
Pope and his advisors.
If Rome thought, on the one hand, that the death of Calvin was her triumph, there
were Protestants, on the other, who viewed it as the almost certain overthrow of the
Reformation. There was just as little foundation for this conclusion as for the other. It
is principles, not men, that keep the world moving. The Reformer, in his short life of
not quite fifty-five years, had embodied all the principles of the movement in his
writings; he had enshrined them as in a living model in Geneva; through Geneva he
had initiated the great work of impressing them on Christendom. This, not the handful
of dust in the Plain-palais, was Calvin. The eye truly enlightened could see him still
occupying his chair at Geneva, and legislating and ruling Christendom from it as from
a throne. While the Reformation was there, Calvin was there; and if at Geneva, it was
in France, and in all Christendom. Both those who triumphed and those who trembled,
thinking the last hour was about to strike to Geneva and the Reformation, were alike
mistaken. The city rose higher than before, though the man who made it famous was
in his grave. The movement spread wider than ever, and if the city was a centre and
impelling power to the movement, the movement was a bulwark around the city. “The
Genevese of the sixteenth century,” says an eloquent modern writer, “committed one
of those deeds of saintly daring which seem folly in the eyes of men, but which are in
reality the safeguard of nations heroic enough to attempt them. Geneva had been the
representative of a great right, liberty of conscience; she offered an asylum to all the
martyrs of the faith; she had put her hand to the work, and pursued her career without
casting a look behind. Politicians and calculators may, if they please, see a sort of
madness in a republic, without strength or riches, proclaiming religious and moral
liberty in the face of Italy, Spain, and France, united for the triumph of Romish
despotism. But the God of the faithful ones who hold fast the truth confounded human
prevision, he surrounded our town with that celestial protection, against which the
plots and the rage of the mighty broke in vain. Thus Geneva, without arms and
without territory, accomplished her perilous mission; and remaining faithful to the
principle of her nationality, the city of Calvin saw herself the object of the Divine
145
favour, and enjoyed a prosperity, a respect, and an outward security which the most
powerful States in the world do not often obtain.”[2]
Now that we have come to the close of Calvin’s career, it is necessary that we should
pause, and ask wherein lay his distinctive characteristic as a Reformer, and what was
it that constituted the specific difference between his Reformation and that of Luther.
The answer to this inquiry will help us to understand the unity that belongs to the
great drama whose successive developments we are attempting to trace. The work of
Luther was needed to prepare for that of Calvin, and Calvin’s was necessary to
complete and crown that of Luther. The parts which each acted were essential to
constitute a whole. Wittenberg and Geneva make between them one Reformation.
This can be better seen in our day than when Luther and Calvin were alive, and toiling
each at his allotted part of the great task.
Let us first sketch in outline the difference between these two men and their work, and
then return and explain it a little more in detail.
By the year 1535, the Reformation in Germany had culminated, and was beginning to
decline. The Augsburg Confession (1530) marked the era of greatest prosperity in
German Protestantism; the formation of the Schmalkald League notified the moment
of its incipient decline.
That League, in itself, was quite defensible - nay, even dutiful, considering the power
of the princes, and the attempts the emperor was making to destroy the political
system of Germany. But it exercised, especially after the death of Luther, a depressing
and withering effect upon the spiritual energies of the Protestants, which did more to
throw back the movement than would any amount of violence that could have been
inflicted upon it. With Luther in his grave, with Melancthon and his compromises,
with Landgrave Philip and his soldiers, the Reformation in Germany had closed its
period of well-doing. Another centre had to be found where the movement might have
a fresh start. Geneva was selected. There the Reformation was extricated from the
political entanglements with which it had become mixed up in Germany. It was
rescued from the hands of political and military men: it was withdrawn from reliance
on armies, and committed to those who could further it only with their prayers and
their martyrdoms. True, its second cradle was placed on a spot which, of all others,
seemed open to attack on every side, and where it was not sure of a day’s life; yet
around that spot were invisible ramparts; the poise constantly maintained in the
ambitions of its neighbouring sovereigns - Charles, Francis, and the Pope - was to it
for walls.
As new foothold had to be found for the movement, so too had a new chief. And,
accordingly, before Luther had been laid in his tomb at Wittenberg, Calvin was fairly
installed at Geneva. He was prosecuting his work in quietness by the shores of the
Leman, while the princes of the Schmalkald League were fighting on the plains of
Germany. Under Calvin the Reformation entered upon a new and more spiritual
dispensation. All the incidents in Luther’s life are sudden, startling, and dramatic: this
form was given them to draw attention and fix the minds of men. But the movement,
once launched, needed this array of outward drapery no longer. Under Calvin it
appeals less to the senses and more to the intellect: less to the imagination and more to
the soul. The evolutions in Calvin’s career are quiet, gradual, without the stage effect,
if we may be permitted the phrase, which marked Luther’s more notable appearances,
146
but they are more truly sublime. Henceforward the Reformation proceeds more
silently, but with a deeper power, and a higher moral glow.
The leading stages of Luther’s history repeat themselves in that of Calvin, but after a
different fashion. In the career of each there is a marked point of commencement, and
a marked point of culmination. The nailing of the ninety-five Theses to the church
door at Wittenberg has its analogue, or corresponding act, in the publication of the
Institutes at Basle. The one manifesto struck and stirred Christendom even as did the
other. Each notified the entrance of its author upon a high career. They were two
mighty voices telling the world that great instructors had been sent to it, and bidding it
hear them. Again, the appearance of Luther before the Diet at Worms has its
corresponding act in the victory of Calvin over the Libertines of Geneva, when at the
risk of life he barred their way to the Communion-table. The first was the more
dramatic, the second was the more evangelically grand. Both were needed fully to
define the office and place of the Reformation. The first demonstrated the Gospel’s
power to withstand kings and armies, and triumph over all the power of the sword: the
second showed that its energy equally fitted it to cope with Libertine mobs, and to
resist their devastating theories. It would not lay its freedom at the feet of the tyrant,
and neither would it surrender its purity at the call of the populace.
Im fact, we see only the one half of the work which Calvin accomplished, when we
confine our attention to the blow he dealt that great system which had so long kept the
intellect of the world in darkness and its conscience in bondage. The evil he prevented
rising up was as great as that he helped to pull down. It is altogether a mistake to
suppose that if the Reformation had not come, the Church of Rome would have
continued to exercise the sway she had wielded in the past. The hour of her
supremacy had gone by. The scandals and dogmas of the priesthood had destroyed
belief: the speculations of the schoolmen had sown the seeds of pantheism, and a
great tempest lowered over Europe. Loosened from its old foundations, an upheaval
of society was inevitable. But for Protestantism, Servetus would have been the
Voltaire of the sixteenth century: the Libertine club, on the shores of the Leman,
would have anticipated the Encyclopaedists who at a later period flourished on the
banks of the Seine; Geneva would have filled the post which Paris did two centuries
after, by becoming the headquarters of revolutionary propagandism; and the year
1593 would have been as fatal to the thrones and altars of the Papal world as was the
year 1793. Providence postponed the tempest through the agency of Calvin, who
grappled with the young giant of pantheistic revolution, and made Geneva the
headquarters of a Protestant propagandism, which by restoring knowledge and faith
imparted a new life to the European nations, and laid over again the foundations of a
world that was dissolving and about to vanish away. And not only was the storm
deferred thereby, its violence was mitigated when at last it came, and its devastations
restricted to the one half of Europe. The Roman Church may not see the debt it owes
to Calvin; that, however, does not make it less the fact that there is no man who ever
lived, to whom its priests owe half what they owe to him. The inviolability of person
which they continued to enjoy for two centuries after his day was due to the
Reformer.
Such were the two men who figured so largely in the sixteenth century, and such is
the part accomplished by each in the one work assigned to them. But let us explain a
little more fully what we have now briefly stated. The special service that Calvin
147
rendered to Protestantism was to codify its laws, and organise its adherents so as to
conserve their morality and holiness - in other words, the Reformation itself. His first
step in the direction of this great end - in his view the standing or falling of
Protestantism - was to exclude the profane from the Communion-table. This power he
lodged in the Consistory, or body of pastors and elders. He would allow no other
authority on earth to exercise it: and in claiming this power - and we have seen at
what risks he exercised it - he separated between the Church and the world, and laid
the first stone in that system of polity which he afterwards elaborated, and which was
ultimately extended to the Protestant Churches of France, of Holland, of Scotland, and
of yet remoter countries.
In what he did in this matter, the Reformer of Geneva built upon the foundations of
his great predecessors. The more eminent of the Reformers who had been before him,
had felt the necessity of drawing a distinction between the Church and the world, and
of excluding the ungodly and vicious from the Sacraments, and so conserving the
Church’s purity; but their theories of Church discipline were elementary and crude,
and their practical attempts were to a great extent failures. Still it is beyond doubt that
these early and immature experiments helped to eliminate the principles and shape the
projects which resulted at last in the establishment of the Genevan polity.
Luther saw, and often mournfully felt, that the Church needed a discipline, but he
failed to give it such. When Luther enunciated his idea of a Church as “a congregation
of saints, a spiritual assembly of souls in one faith,”[3] he laid the foundation of a
fabric on which Calvin afterwards placed the top-stone. But the German Reformer
proceeded no farther on this fundamental idea than to constitute an office of men to
preach the Word and dispense the Sacraments. Scattered through his writings are the
germs of a more complete and efficient polity; he could distinguish between the
temporal and the spiritual jurisdiction,[4] but how to give these principles effect in the
gathering and organising of the Church he knew not. He sorrowfully confesses, in his
German Mass and Order of Divine Worship, his inability to furnish what was so much
needed - a working plan for the government of the Church. One main obstruction in
his path was the low state of practical religion among the mass of the German people.
“I have not the people,” said he, “whom it requires. For we Germans are a wild, rude,
riotous race, among whom it is not easy to set anything on foot unless necessity
compel.”[5]
Melancthon enunciated his views on this head a little more clearly than Luther. He
declared his opinion “that a pastor ought not to excommunicate any man without the
concurrence of a body of judges, and the cooperation of some worthy members of the
Church.”[6] So also taught the four Saxon Reformers - Pomeranus, Jonas, Luther, and
Melancthon. In a joint epistle to the ministers of Nuremberg, in 1540, exhorting them
to resume the practice of excommunication, they annex the condition that, in this
business, elders be associated with the pastor.[7] These projects embrace the elements
of the Genevan polity. They fell to the ground, it is true, about 1542, when the system
under which the Churches of the Lutheran Communion still are, was adopted namely, a Consistory, chosen by, and responsible to, the civil powers; but they exhibit
a notable approximation on the part of the German Reformers to the plan of
ecclesiastical rule afterwards elaborated and set working by Calvin.
Next in order is the scheme of John Brentius. Brentius was the Reformer first of the
free imperial city of hall, in Swabia, and afterwards of the Duchy of Wurtemberg. He
148
had the merit of proposing to the Council of Hall, in 1526, a better working plan for
the regulation of the Church than either Luther’s or Melancthon’s, although still his
plan was defective. Founding on what, according to his view, was the order followed
in the Apostolic Church, he says: “The saints of the primitive Church thought it good
to observe the following order in conducting evangelical discipline: - Certain ancient,
honourable, and discreet men were elected from the assembly by the Christian people
of each locality, to whom charge was given to take the oversight of the congregation;
and in particular to admonish such as gave offence by unChristian ‘unchristian’
behaviour, and to inflict excommunication, if admonition proved unavailing. Of these
chosen men the one who was appointed to preach the Word, and who was authorised
to convene the others for business, was styled Bishop - that is, overseer or shepherd;
the rest were styled, in allusion to their age, Presbyters - that is, Councillors. The
meeting of the Presbyters and Bishop was designated a Synod - that is, an assembly.”
Such was the scheme of Brentius; it is a well-defined and independent plan of Church
rule, lodging the correction of manners solely in the hands of the Church herself - that
is, of her office-bearers.
Brentius appeared on the point of anticipating Calvin as regards his Church polity;
and yet he missed it. The existence of a Christian magistracy, in his view, modified
the whole question. A pagan magistrate could not be expected to correct Church
scandals, and therefore it behooved the primitive Church, unaided by the State, to
administer her whole discipline; but now, the magistrate being Christian he was fitted,
according to Brentius, to share with the Church the task of correcting and punishing
evils; although still there were vices and sins which the civil ruler could not or would
not correct, and these the Church herself must see to. Thus he inextricably mixed up
the Church’s discipline with the State’s authority, and he added to the confusion by
giving to the magistrate the nomination of the lay-assessors who were to take part
with the pastor in the exercise of discipline.
Another scheme claims a moment’s attention from us. It is that of Francis Lambert,
ex-monk of Avignon, and Philip, Landgrave of Hesse. It was laid before the
Committee of Hornburg in the same year (1526) that saw the scheme of John Brentius
submitted to the Council of Hall. It is the most advanced of all. It lodged the
administration of discipline immediately and directly in the members of the Church.
First of all, so far as human judgment could effect it, a Church of saints only was to be
constituted; these were to convene from time to time, “for the public punishment and
exclusion of scandalous persons … for passing judgment on the doctrine of their
pastor, for electing and, in case of need, deposing bishops and deacons (i.e., ministers
and helpers) and guardians of the poor, and for whatsoever other functions pertain to
the congregation; for these reasons, we ordain that in every parish, after God’s Word
shall have been preached for a season, there shall take place a convention of the
faithful, wherein all males, who favour the cause of Christ and are reputed saints,
shall come together to decide, along with the bishop, on all Church affairs, according
to the Word of God. The bishop or minister may by no means excommunicate or
absolve by himself, but only in conjunction with the congregation.”[8]
This is not so much the Presbyterian as the Congregational polity. It is, in fact, a
scheme that blends the two, for it was made to approximate the first, by the institution
of provincial Synods, consisting of the pastors and a deputy from every congregation.
It is remarkable, when its age and place are considered. A draft of it was sent to
149
Luther for his approval. He advised that for the present the project should not be
attempted, but that every effort be made to fill the pulpits and schools with efficient
men. Thereafter the plan might be introduced piece-meal, and if it met with general
approval might become law; “for to draw a fine plan and to reduce it to practice are
two very different things. Men are not constituted as those people imagine who sit at
home and sketch fine plans of how things are to go.” This constitution was hardly set
a-working when it was abandoned. The Church of Hesse, surrounded on all sides by
laxer schemes of polity, in a year or two forsook that of Lambert, and adopted that
under which Luther had placed the Churches of Saxony.
The plan of Zwingli was intermediate between that of Luther and that of Calvin. The
Reformer of Zurich framed a code of laws and ordinances covering the entire field of
social life, and committed their administration to a series of judges or courts, supreme
over which was the State.
Marriage, the Sunday, and the Sacrament were the three centres of his moral scheme,
the three points on which his ecclesiastical code hinged. With Luther, he regarded the
power of discipline as vested in the whole body of the faithful; and the provisions he
made for the exercise of that power were, first, the Kirk-session, or Still-stand, so
called for this reason, that at the close of public worship the members remained in
church, still-standing, with the pastor, and in that attitude made their communications
to the minister, and to one another, and reproved those cited before them for
discipline. [9] Secondly, the half-yearly Synod, which chiefly occupied itself with the
doctrines and morals of the clergy; and thirdly, the Board of Moral Control, to which
was added, when the discipline of the Church extended, the magistrates of the district.
Excommunication - that is, exclusion from the membership of the Church, with all
implied in that sentence in Switzerland - was often pronounced by the Still-stand as a
temporary measure; but as a final measure it could be pronounced only by the
Council. The supreme ecclesiastical authority was thus in the hands of the State, but it
was handed over to it by Zwingli on the express condition that the magistrates were
Christian men, and were to take the Word of God as their sole directory in all their
proceedings.[10] The zeal and promptitude with which the Council of Zurich aided
Zwingli in his reforming measures, was not without its influence in moulding his
scheme of polity, and indeed the Swiss magistrates of those days were amongst the
more enlightened and pious of the population. But seeing Constitutions are permanent
while men change, in order to be wisely framed they ought to be based, not on
exceptional cases, but on great and general laws.
Next to the doctrine of the Church, there is nothing that appertains more to her wellbeing than her discipline. Without this, her life would ebb away, and she would fall
back into the world from which she had come out; whereas, with a suitable
organization, not only would her life be preserved, but her vigour and efficiency
would be increased tenfold. We have therefore sought to trace the successive stages of
the growth of the polity of the Protestant Churches. We see the Church’s government,
like her doctrine, gradually developing and taking shape. The doctrine of the
priesthood of all believers we find lying at the foundation of all these schemes. On
this idea Luther constitutes the office of preacher of the Word. He feels that this is not
enough, but does not see how, in the then immature state of the Church, more can be
done. Brentius joined lay-assessors with the pastor, who were to exclude the unworthy
from the privileges of the Church; but the better half of this power he gave to the
150
magistrate, who might in the end - this was of course the questionable part of the
scheme - usurp the whole of it. Francis Lambert went to the other extreme. He made
all the members of the Church judges - a plan that will work with difficulty in any
age, and which certainly was unsuited to the age that saw its birth. The polity
constructed by Zwingli was more elaborate, and did much to nourish morality and
piety in Switzerland, but its framer seriously endangered it when he surrendered to the
magistrate the power, in the last resort, of excluding from the Church and her
ordinances.
Calvin, doubtless, had studied all these attempts, and profited by them. There is no
reason to think that he reached this scheme of Church polity at a bound; it was rather
a reproduction of earlier schemes, avoiding, as far as he could, the rock on which his
predecessors had split. His genius detected the one thing which he thought essential in
Church discipline; and less concerned about other matters, he tenaciously grasped
this, the power namely of admitting to or excluding from the privileges of the Church.
It was his strong opinion that he who had this power had the guardianship of the
Church’s purity, and the control of her government, and that this right must be
exercised by the Church herself - that is, by her chosen representatives - to the
exclusion of all other authority and power. No one, he considered, can share with the
Church, and no one dare interfere with her in the exercise of this right. At great peril
and suffering he vindicated this right, against both the Council of Geneva and the
Libertine democracy. In this battle he stemmed the rising tide of infidel sentiment and
immoral manners which would have been more fatal to Reformation than the arms of
the Empire, and he laid the corner-stone of that spiritual dominion which
Protestantism was to exercise over the nations.
The Presbyterian of the present day will not admit that Calvin’s scheme was faultless.
The Reformer’s views touching the theocratic character of States prevented him doing
full justice to his own idea of the individuality of the Church, and forbade his placing
his ecclesiastical polity alongside the State’s government, as an independent and
distinct autonomy. In the administration of practical discipline at Geneva the Council
was greater than the Consistory. But the essential principle, as Calvin deemed it namely, the sole power to admit or exclude, which was in his mind the key of the
position - he combated for, and vindicated with all the force of his mighty intellect.
And when he came to apply his theory of Church power to the French Churches, the
completeness and consistency of his ideas on ecclesiastical polity were better seen. In
France the government was hostile, and there, even if Calvin had wished, he could not
have effected the complication that existed at Geneva. But all the more was the fitness
of his scheme demonstrated. It gave a perfect autonomy to the French Protestant
Church, which enabled her to maintain her place alongside the throne, and to survive
a lengthened succession of terrific tempests, which began from this time to assail her.
It is not difficult to see, now that we look back on the epoch, that God was then
teaching a great lesson to the world - that a scripturally constituted and scripturally
governed Church would, in days to come, be the only bulwark against the tremendous
evils which were beginning to assail Christendom from opposite sides. This lesson,
we must repeat, was taught twice over, first in the case of Luther, and secondly in the
case of Calvin.
In Luther we see the Reformation, undazzled by the blaze of worldly glory, and
unterrified by the threats of worldly power, maintaining its ground despite the
151
insolence of authority. In the case of Calvin, in the Cathedral of St. Peter’s, we see the
Reformation standing before a licentious and furious infidel mob, who hate it not less
than the emperor does, and are just as eager to extinguish it in blood, and we behold
that mob recoiling abashed and awe-struck before its moral power. Happy had it been
for Italy and Spain had they laid to heart the first lesson! and happy had it been for
France had she pondered the second!
152
FOOTNOTES - BOOK FOURTEEN
CHAPTER 1
[1] De Bello Gallico, 1. 6.
[2] Spon, Hist. de Geneve, 3, p. 108.
[3] Ruchat, Hist. Reform. Suisse, tom. 1, p. 325; Lausanne, 1835.
[4] Bern MS., discovered by D’Aubigne in the Library at Bern - Hist. Reform. in
Europe, vol. 1, p. 47.
[5] Advis et Devis de la Source de l’Idolatrie Papale, p. 34 - quoted by D’Aubigne,
Hist. Ref. in Europe, vol 1, p. 160.
[6] Ibid., p. 80 - quoted by D’Aubigne, vol. 1, p. 161.
CHAPTER 2
[1] Bonivard, Chron., 2, 369 - apud D’Aubigne, 1, 257.
[2] D’Aubigne, bk. 1, chap. 20.
[3] M. Roset, Chron., 103. Ruchat, tom. 1, pp. 330, 331. Gallfie, Materiaux, etc., vol.
2, p. 303 - apud D’Aubigne, vol. 1, p. 289.
[4] Ruchat, tom. 1, p. 331.
[5] D’Aubigne, vol. 1, p. 321.
[6] D’Aubigne, vol. 1, p. 331.
[7] D’Aubigne, vol. 1, pp. 338-340.
[8] Byron, Marino Faliero, act 2, scene 2.
[9] Bonivard, Chron., vol. 2, pp. 424-427. Galiffe, Hist. de Geneve, vol. 2, pp. 318323. Journal de Balard, pp. 28-30 - quoted by D’Aubigne, vol. 1, p. 386.
[10] Registres du Conseil, December, 1525.
[11] Registres du Conseil, March 12, 1526. Journal de Balard, p. 54. Spon, Hist. de
Geneve, 2. 392. Ruchat, 1. 331.
CHAPTER 3
[1] Ruchat, tom. 1, p. 353. Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renov., tom. 2, p. 322.
(Ecolampadius to Farel, 27th December, 1526. Neuchatel MS. - quoted by
D’Aubigne, vol. 4, p. 266; Edin., 1546.
[2] Ruchat, tom. 1, p. 353.
153
[3] Ibid., tom. 1, p. 356.
[4] J. J. Hottinger, 3. 364. D’Aubigne, vol. 4, p. 268.
[5] Ruchat, tom. 1, p. 356.
[6] Gerdesius, Hist. Reform., tom. 2, p. 322.
[7] We have already given a picture of the manners, lay and clerical, of Lausanne in
the sixteenth century. See ante, vol. 1, bk. 8, ch. 3, p. 419.
[8] Ruchat, tom. 1, p. 357.
[9] Ibid., tom. 2, p. 175.
[10] Ibid., tom. 2, p. 178.
[11] Ruchat, tom. 2, pp. 176, 182.
[12] Ibid., tom. 2, p. 179.
[13] Farellus Molano. Neuchatel MS. - quoted by D’Aubigne, vol. 4, p. 323.
[14] Ruchat, tom. 2, p. 181.
[15] Choupard, MS. - quoted by D’Aubigne, vol. 4, p. 331.
[16] Ruchat, tom. 2, pp. 184, 185.
[17] Ibid., p. 185.
[18] Ruchat, tom. 2, pp. 276, 277.
CHAPTER 4
[1] Recess de MM. de Bern, MS. Choupard, MS. Chambrier, Hist. de Neuchatel.
Governor’s letter to Princess de Longueville - apud D’Aubigne. Ruchat, tom. 2, pp.
277-280.
[2] D’Aubigne, bk. 15, chap. 9.
[3] Memoire du Sire de Pierrefleur, p. 35. vol. 4, p. 258. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 23.
[4] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 27.
[5] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 28.
[6] Melch. Adam., Vit. Theol., p. 120. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 25. - German Switzerland
differs from French Switzerland or the Swiss Romande, in that the former was
evangelised almost entirely by native preachers, as Zwingle, (Ecolampadius, Hailer,
etc. Viret was, we may say, the only native Reformer that arose in French
Switzerland. It was mainly evangelised by men who had been born beyond its
frontier.
154
[7] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 31-33.
[8] Memoire du Sire de Pierrefleur, p. 74. Choupard, MS. D’Aubigne, vol. 3, p. 291.
CHAPTER 5
[1] Memoire de M. de Bellegarde au sujet de l’audience qu’il a eu de S.M. Imperiale
touchant les differends que S.A. avait avec ceux de Geneve. This MS. of about 25
pages was discovered by Dr. D’Aubigne in the archives at Turin. (See Hist. Reform.
in Europe, bk. 5, chap. 6.)
[2] Spanheim, Geneva, Restituta, p. 43. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 175.
[3] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 5. Spon, Hist. de Geneve, tom. 1, p. 467.
Choupard, MS. D’Aubigne, tom. 3, pp. 333. 334.
[4] Choupard, MS.
[5] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 177.
[6] La Saeur J. de Jussie, Le Lerain du Calvinisme, p. 46.
[7] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 177-180.
[8] Froment, Gestes de Geneve. pp. 5, 6. Choupard, MS. Spanheim, Geneva Restituta,
p. 43.
[9] La Saeur J. de Jussie, Le Levain du Calvinisme, p. 48.
[10] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 179.
[11] Badollet MS. in Bern Library - Hist. Helv., quoted by D’Aubigne, vol 3, p. 375.
[12] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 180, 181,
[13] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, pp. 16-18.
[14] The prayer and the sermon that followed it have been recorded by Froment
himself in his Gestes de Geneve. They are given by D’Aubigne in his History of the
Reformation in Europe, bk. 5, ch. 12.
[15] Spanheim, Geneva Restituta, p. 52. Froment, Gestes de Geneve, pp. 43, 44.
Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 185.
[16] Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 186.
CHAPTER 6
[1] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 48. Spon, Hist. de Geneve, 1, p. 481.
[2] Hosea 6. 3.
[3] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 188. D’Aubigne, vol. 3,p. 432.
155
[4] D’Aubigne, vol. 3,p. 433.
[5] MS. Archives of Geneva: Letter from Bern, 20th March, 1533.
[6] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 51.
[7] Spanheim, Geneva Restituta - “solenni sacramento.” Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 190.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ruchat, tom, 3, p. 191.
[10] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 193.
[11] Choupard, MS. D’Aubigne, vol. 3, p. 470.
[12] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, pp. 55-57. Roset, MS. Chron. Council Registers,
28th March, 1533. D’Aubigne, vol. 3, p. 472.
[13] Buchat, tom. 3, p. 194.
[14] La Scour J. de Jussie, Le Levain du Calvinisme, pp. 61, 62. D’Aubigne, vol. 3, p.
494.
[15] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 59. La Saeour J. de Jussie, Le Levain du
Calvinisme, p. 63. Council Registers, 4th and 23rd May, 1533. D’Aubigne, vol. 3,pp.
500, 501.
[16] “Permettre a chacun de suivre les mouvements de sa conscience, en telle sorte
que personne ne soit constraint.” (Council. Registers, 27th May, 1533.)
[17] Roset, MS. Chronicles. Froment, Gestes de Geneve, pp. 62, 63. D’Aubigne, vol.
4, p. 248.
[18] D’Aubigne, vol. 4, p. 253.
[19] Gaberel. Lettres Patentes de l’Eveque. D’Aubigne, vol, 4, p. 255.
[20] Roset, MS. Chronicles, bk. 3, chap. 17.
CHAPTER 7
[1] Roset, Chron., bk. 3, chap. 21. Registres du Conseil, February 8th and 10th, 1534.
[2] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 82. Registres du ConseiI, March, 1534.
[3] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 325, 326.
[4] Ibid., tom. 3, p. 326.
[5] Ibid., tom. 3, p. 327.
156
[6] Froment, Gestes de Geneve, p. 125. Roset, Chron., bk. 3, chap. 27. Registres du
Conseil, July 31st, 1534, and January 25th, 1537. D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol. 4,
pp. 400-402.
[7] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 337.
[8] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 343.
[9] Ibid., tom. 3, p. 354.
[10] Registres du Conseil, August 23rd, 1534.
[11] Misson in 1688 found Geneva still without suburbs. The four suburbs
demolished were Rive, St. Victor, St. Leger, and Corraterie. (Misson, vol. 2, part 2, p.
410. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 379.)
[12] “Les Catholiques avaient une pleine liberte de pratiquer publiquement leurs
ceremonies, et de faire generalement par toute la ville tous les autres exercices de leur
religion.” (Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 342.)
[13] Registres du Conseil, January 24th, 1534.
CHAPTER 8
[1] Ruchat, tom 3, p. 330. Gaberel, Hist. Eglise de Geneve, vol. I., p. 115.
[2] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 348.
[3] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 335.
[4] Ibid., tom. 3, pp. 336-337.
[5] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 352.
[6] Ibid., tom. 3, pp. 338, 339, 341.
[7] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 346, 347. Roset Chron., bk. 3, chap. 31. Gaberel, Hist. Eglise
de Geneve, vol. 1, pp. 125-128; Geneve, 1853.
[8] Gaberel, vol. 1, p. 156.
[9] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 357, 358. Roset, Chron., 3. 35.
[10] Spenser, The Faerie Queene, bk. 1, cant. 4, st. 16.
[11] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 359, 360. Spanheim, p. 79. Roset, Chron., bk. 3, chap. 35.
Gaberel, vol. 1, pp. 156-158.
[12] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 355, 356, Roset, Chron., 3, 35.
[13] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 375, 376. Roset, Chron., bk. 3, chap. 50. Spanheim, pp. 25,
26.
157
[14] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 375. - “Cervi veretrum, pro Antonii brachio repertum est. O
sacrum non ridicuhm modo, sed detestabile et vere pudendum!” (Spanheim, pp. 24,
25.)
[15] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 378, 379. Gabere1, 1. 128-131.
CHAPTER 9
[1] Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 378.
[2] Ibid., tom. 3, p. 378.
[3]. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 371. Gaberel, Hist. Eglise de Geneve, vol. 1, p. 161.
[4] Ruchat tom. 3, pp. 372, 373. 1081
[5] Ibid., tom. 3, p. 375.
[6] Ibid., tom. 3, pp. 375, 376.
[7] So ran the decree. Calvin had afterwards to complain of the misappropriation of
these funds to private uses.
[8] Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 381, 382, Roset, Hist. de Geneve, tom. 1, pp. 371, 372. Roset,
Chron., bk. 3, chap. 37.
[9] Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 6.
[10] Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 7.
[11] Ibid., tom. 4, pp. 9-24.
[12] Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 15.
[13] Ruchat, tom. 4, pp. 24-33.
[14] MS. Chouet, p. 40. Roset, bk. 3, chap. 62. Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 108.
[15] MS. Chouet, p. 41. Ruchat, tom. 4, p. 109.
[16] Roset, bk. 3, chap. 68. MS. Chouet, p. 41. Ruchat, tom. 3, pp. 110, 111.
[17] A summary of this Confession will be found in the following chapter.
[18] MS. Chouet, p. 41. Ruchat, tom. 3, p. 111. A copy of this first Helvetic
Confession from the original document, communicated to M. Ruchat by M. Jacob
Bordier, Pastor of the Church of Geneva, and Librarian, is to be found in Ruchat’s
History, tom. 4, pp. 111-122.
[19] Ruchat, 3, 591, 592. Misson, Travel, 11, 417.
[20] “When in the year 1535 the tyranny of the Roman Antichrist had been
overthrown and his superstitions abolished, the most holy religion of Christ in its
158
purity, and the Church in its good order, were, by the singular mercy of God, here reestablished. And at the same time its enemies having been beaten and put to flight, the
city itself, not without the most manifest Divine interposition, was restored to its
liberty. The Senate and People of Geneva decreed that this monument, in eternal
memory of the event, should be prepared and set up in this place. By this they desire
to testify their gratitude to God to all posterity.” - Michael Roset says that a similar
tablet was placed above the gate of the Corraterie; and the historical calendar, which
is placed before the greater part of the old edition of the French Psalms, translated into
verse by Marot and Beza, gives the date of the edict of the Reformation as the 27th of
August, 1535.
CHAPTER 10
[1] Beza, Vita Calvini; Geneva, 1575.
[2] Ruchat, 4, 133.
[3] Beza, Vita Calvini.
[4] Beza, Vita Calvini.
[5] Praefatio ad PsaImos - Opp. Calvini.
[6] Ruchat, tom. 4, 133. Beza, Vita Calvini.
[7] Bungener, Calvin: his Life, his Labours, and his Writings, p. 102; Edin., 1863.
[8] Beza, Vita Calvini.
[9] Ruchat, tom. 4, pp. 111-122. Bungener, Calvin, pp. 104-108.
[10] The Council-General - that is, the People - elected the Council of Two hundred.
In 1542 this was changed, and the election given to the Council of Twenty-five.
Calvin saw the danger of the step, and conjured the magistrates to allow the Two
Hundred to be named at all times by the Council-General. He foretold conflicts in the
future, for the people would be sure some time or other to retake the power of which
they had been deprived. “It was,” says M. Gaberel, in his History of the Church of
Geneva, “perhaps the only time in which Calvin was not listened to. If the election of
Two Hundred had been left to the Council-General, the revolutions of the eighteenth
century would never have caused blood to flow on the Genevese territory.” (Tom. 1,
p. 522.)
[11] Two Syndics, four members of the Council of Twenty-five, and six of the
Council of Two Hundred. (Ruchat, Tom. 5, p. 158.)
[12] Guizot, Hist. France, vol. 3,pp. 236, 237; Lond., 1874.
CHAPTER 11
[1] Those who condemn Calvin for having forbidden dances, little dream of what sort
these dances were. Ruchat, the historian of the Swiss Reformation (tom. 5, p. 244),
tells us that there was in Lausanne a society of youths who at certain seasons “paraded
159
the streets entirely naked, or in masques, representing the god Bacchus, dancing and
singing lewd songs.” Of a similar kind were the dances in Geneva. These laws, as we
have seen in the previous chapter, were already enacted by the Council. Calvin found
them in operation when he entered Geneva.
[2] Ruchat, tom.4, p. 110.
[3] Bungener, Calvin,. p. 110.
[4] Roset, MS. Chron.
[5] Ibid. Ruchat, tom. 5, p. 57.
[6] Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 57, 58.
[7] Beza, Vita Calvini.
[8] Beza, Vita Calvini.
[9] M. Roset, Chron. de Geneva, bk. 4, chap. 15.
[10] Bonnet, Lettres Francaises, tom. 2, p. 575.
[11] Roset, MS,. Chron, bk. 4, chap. 18. Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 65, 66
[12] Roset, MS. Chron. Beza Vita Calvini. Reqistrae, 23rd April, 1538.
CHAPTER 12
[1] Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 84-86.
[2] Morand was minister at Cully, on the shores of Lake Leman. Marcourt was
minister at Neuchatel. Some have said that Marcourt was the writer of the famous
Placards, which Florimond Raemond attributes to Farel. These violent manifestoes
first thoroughly awoke that spirit of bloody persecution from which the Protestants
suffered so long in France. It has never been certainly proved whose work they were,
but they are more likely to have emanated from Marcourt than from Farel.
[3] Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 100,101.
[4] Ibid., tom. 5, pp. 123,124.
[5] Beza, Vita Calvini. Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 115,116. Bungener, pp. 136-145.
[6] Ad J. Sadoletum Responsio - Opp. Jo. Calvini, vol. 8, pp. 105-115; Amstel., 1667.
[7] Sleidan, Hist. Reform., bk. 12, p. 245.
[8] Sleidan, bk. 12, p. 247.
[9] Bungener, p. 152.
160
CHAPTER 13
[1] Sleidan, bk. 13, p. 268.
[2] Ibid., bk. 13. pp. 267, 268.
[3] Calvin’s Letter to Farel, April, 1589 - Jules Bonnet, vol. 1, p. 114.
[4] Sleidan, bk. 13., p. 270. Ruchat, tom. 5, p. 151.
[5] Sleidan, bk. 13, p. 275.
[6] Sleidan, bk. xiii., pp. 276, 277.
[7] Letters of Calvin - Jules Bonnet, vol. i., p. 236.
[8] Letter to Farel, 11th May, 1541 - Jules Bonnet.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Letter to Farel, 11th May, 1541-Jules Bonnet.
[12] Sleidan, bk. xiv., pp. 278-282. Calvin, Letters, Nos. 63, 65, 67, 70. Paul Henry,
Life and Times of Calvin, vol. i., pp. 230-237.
[13] M. Adamus, Vita Melancthonis, p. 340. Calvin, however, calls it apoplexy (Ep.
32). Eck died two years later, of a second attack of apoplexy. (Seckendorf, iii. parag.
112.)
[14] Sleidan, bk. xiv., p. 283.
CHAPTER 14
[1] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 96.
[2] The two foreign pastors, Marcourt and Morand, we find complaining to the
Council in February, 1539, of the dissoluteness of Geneva, the masquerades, indecent
songs, balls, dances, blasphemies, and of persons walking naked through the town to
the sound of drums and fifes. (Ruchat, v. 112.)
[3] M. Roset, MS. Chron. Beza, Vita Calvini.
[4] Bungener, pp. 147, 148.
[5] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 155.
[6] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 152.
[7] Calvin to Farel, 27th October, 1540 - Jules Bonnet, No. 54.
161
[8] Beza, Vita Calvini. Ruchat, tom. v. p. 157. Letter to James Bernard, 1st March,
1541 - Jules Bonnet, No. 62.
[9] Had this been a biography, we should have dwelt at some length on Calvin’s
matrimonial negotiations; but in a history such details would press out graver matters.
The Reformer devolved on his friends the task of providing a wife for him, They
nominated and he exercised a veto. First a lady of noble birth and rich dower was
found for him. He did not choose to mate with one above his own degree. He
proposed that the lady should learn the French tongue; and, as Calvin had foreseen,
she refused. Another lady was named, and Calvin had made advances, but, happily, he
discovered in time sufficient reasons for not going farther. At last Bucer proposed one
who had lately become a widow, Idelette de Bure, or Van Buren. She was a lady of
deep piety, elevation of soul, and Christian courage, “a most choice woman,” says
Beza. These were the qualities that suited Calvin. The nuptials took place in the end
of August, 1540. She was a girdle of strength to her husband. The reader can not but
remark the similarity of the names, Catherine de Bora and Idelette de Bure. They were
noble women, but as the wives, the first of Luther and the second of Calvin, truth
stand in a sort of twilight.
[10] “Pour la robe de Maistre Calvin.” His salary was fixed at 500 Genevese florins,
about £120 sterling of our day. He had besides twelve measures of corn, and two
casks of wine. For a dwelling the mansion Freyneville was purchased at 260 crowns.
CHAPTER 15
[1] Paul Henry, Life and Times of Calvin, vol. i., p. 331. Sleidian, bk. xiv, pp. 284286.
[2] Calvin to Farel; Geneva, 16th Sept., 1541 - Jules Bonnet, No. 76.
[3] Calvin: his Life, Labour., and Writings, bk. iii, chap. 1, p. 180.
[4] Gaberel, vol. i., pp. 255, 256.
[5] Ruchat, v., 158,159.
[6] Hist. de l’Eglize de Geneve; 1862.
[7] Gaberel, tom. i., pp. 269, 270.
[8] Calvin: his Life, Labours, and Writings, pp. 186, 187.
CHAPTER 16
[1] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 159.
[2] Bungener, p. 208.
CHAPTER 17
[1] Bungener, p. 207.
162
[2] Ibid., p. 209.
[3] Letter to Viret, July 11, 1547. Roset, Chronicle, 1546 (from MS. extracts by John
McCrie, son of the biographer of Knox and Melville). Mr. John McCrie, a young man
of the greatest promise, resided some time at Geneva, and made copious extracts from
the Town Council Registers, and Roset’s Chronicle, for the use of Dr. McCrie, his
father, who then meditated writing the Life of Calvin. The Author was most
obligingly favoured with the use of these MS. extracts by his late valued friend, the
younger McCrie.
[4] Ruchat, tom. v., pp. 318-320. Bungener, p. 210. Calvin to Viret, July 11, 1547.
[5] Roset, Chronicle (MS. extracts by John McCrie).
[6] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 317.
[7] Letter to Farel, No. 163 - Bonnet, vol. ii., p. 39.
[8] Letter to Viret, No. 211 - Bonnet, vol. ii., p. 135. This scene made so deep an
impression on the mind of Calvin that he recalled it seventeen years afterwards, on his
death-bed, in his farewell to the ministers of Geneva.
[9] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 327. Bungener, p. 215.
[10] Roset, Chronicle (MS. of John McCrie).
[11] Bezat Calv. Vita, an. 1548. Roset (MS. of John McCrie).
[12] Ruchat, tom. v., p. 380.
CHAPTER 18
[1] Sleidan, bk. 21, p. 485.
[2] Sleidan, bk. 21, pp. 491, 492.
[3] Ibid., p. 492.
[4] Sleidan, bk. 21, p. 492.
[5] Ibid p.484
[6] Formulaire de consentemen dans la doctrine de la Sainte Cene entre les Eglises de
Zurich et de Geneve.” (Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 370-378.)
[7] Ruchat, tom. 5, p. 379. Beza, Calvini Vita, ann. 1549. Bungener, p. 297.
[8] Some of the Lutherans accused Calvin of having changed sides, and become a
convert to Zwingli. To show that the charge is without foundation, Ruchat quotes
Calvin’s statements of the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, first in 1535, in the
Institutes, and secondly in 1537, in the Formulary of Union presented to Bern. These
are to the following effect: - First: “In the Lord’s Supper there is neither
transubstantiation, nor con-substantiation, nor impanation, nor any other change
163
physical or corporeal.” Second: “The Sacrament is not an empty sign, but in it we
truly partake of the body and blood of Christ by faith.” (Ruchat, tom. 5, pp. 379, 380.)
Similar is his statement to Bullinger: “We are thereby made partakers of the body and
blood of Christ, so that he dwells in us and we in him, and thus enjoy his universal
benefits.” (P. Henry, vol. 2, pp. 78, 79.)
[9] “Miraculum Italiae.”
[10] “John a Lasco was a member of a Polish family which had given many
distinguished names to the State, the camp, and the Church. He was the intimate
friend of Erasmus and other scholars, a correspondent of the Queen of Navarre and
other royal persons. Zwingli first sowed the seeds of the Protestant truth in his mind.
He became the founder of the Reformed Church of Friesland, but his views on the
Lord’s Supper corresponding with those of the Swiss Church, he was persecuted by
the Lutherans. He was invited to England by the Protector Somerset and Archbishop
Cranmer. He left England on the accession of Queen Mary, and ultimately settled in
Poland, where he laboured, not without success, in the Reformation of the Polish
Church. (See Strype, Memorials of Cranmer; M c Crie, Italy; Krasinski, Slavonia.)
[11] Daughter of Louis XII., and who but for the Salic law, or as she herself expressed
it, the circumstance that nature had denied her a beard, would have been sovereign of
France.
CHAPTER 19
[1] Not to be confounded, as Lupus has done, with Andrew Servetus, Professor of
Law at Bologna, and afterwards Senator of the Kingdom of Arragon.
[2] Henricus Ab. Allwoerden, Historia Michaelis Serveti, p. 7; Helmstadt, 1727.
[3] Allwoerden, p. 33.
[4] Ibid., p.39.
[5] Bungener, p. 240. His theory of the circulation of the blood occurs in bk. 5 of the
above work. It is given by Allwoerden in the appendix to his Historia Michaelis
Serveti, pp. 232-234. A striking proof, surely, of the subtle, penetrating intellect of the
man, and of the benefits he might have conferred on the world, had his genius been
wisely directed.
[6] Allwoerden, pp. 23-26. P. Henry, 2, pp. 167-176.
[7] De Trin. Error., lib. 7, fol. 3, 6 - apud P. Henry, vol. 2, pp. 167-169.
[8] Allwoerden, p. 42.
[9] Letters of Calvin - Jules Bonnet, vol. 2, No. 154: “Sed nolo fidera meam
interponere, nam si venerit, modo valeat mea authoritas, vivum exire non paitar.” The
original letter is in the Bibliotheque du Rot at Paris. The author was told by his late
friend, the younger McCrie, that he examined the letter, and was sorrowfully
convinced of its authenticity. Bolsec quotes a letter of Calvin’s to Viret to the same
effect, but its authenticity is doubtful.
164
[10] The doom which the Reformers awarded to others for false dogmas, they
accepted for themselves, should they teach what was contrary to the faith. “When I
read Paul’s statement,” says Farel, writing to Calvin, “that he did not refuse to suffer
death if he had in any way deserved it, I saw clearly that I must be prepared to suffer
death if I should teach anything contrary to the doctrine of piety. And I added that I
should be most worthy of any punishment whatever if I should seduce any one from
the faith and doctrine of Christ.” (8th September, 1553 - Calvini Op., tom. 9, p. 71.) If
we condemn the Reformers for their intolerance, we surely can not but admire their
devotion.
[11] Allwoerden, p. 54.
[12] “One of the syndics, at my instigation, committed him to prison.” (To Sultzer,
9th September, 1553.) Spon, in his History of Geneva, says that Servetus had begun to
dogmatise in the city. Bolsec says that he was arrested on the day of his arrival. It is
now generally admitted that he remained a month in Geneva.
[13] Registers of the Council, 14th August, 1553.
[14] Calvin, Refut. Err. Servet., p. 517.
[15] P. Henry, vol. 2, p. 194.
[16] P. Henry, vol. 2, p. 195.
[17] Allwoerden, p. 71.
[18] August 20th, 1553.
[19] Calvin, Refut. Err. Servet., p. 522.
[20] Relation du Proces Criminel Intente a Geneve en 1553, contra Michael Servet,
redigdee d’apres les documents originaux, par Albert Rilliet; Geneve, 1844.
CHAPTER 20
[1] Rilliet, Relation du Proces Criminel, etc., p. 160.
[2] Ibid., p. 162.
[3] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 38;
[4] Rilliet, p. 164. Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 38.
[5] Ibid, p. 165.
[6] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 38.
[7] Gaberel, Hist. de l’Eglise de Geneve, tom. 1, p. 311.
[8] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 39.
165
[9] Rilliet, pp. 166, 167. Rilliet quotes the passage from the unpublished History of
Geneva by Gautier. The sermon was taken down by a notary, translated by Beza, and
sent to Bullinger, at Zurich. The sermon, says Rilliet, “is not in the MS. collection at
Geneva, where the discourses of the year 1553 are wanting.”
[10] Gaberel, tom. 1, p. 312; Geneve, 1853.
[11] Bungener, p. 220.
[12] Beza, ann. 1553.
CHAPTER 21
[1] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 39.
[2] Rilliet (Tweedie’s translation), p. 107.
[3] Ibid., p. 111.
[4] Berthelier’s defence of Servetus is mentioned also by Roset (lib. 5, chap. 50, 51),
and Beza (ann. 1553).
[5] Rilliet, p. 113.
[6] Ibid., p. 114.
[7] The nature of these errors we have already stated, but it does not concern us to go
at large into their truth or atrocity, seeing either way we condemn the burning of
Servetus. Our duty is to show, as fairly and clearly as we can, the exact connection
which the Reformer and the Reformation had with this sad affair.
[8] Rilliet, pp. 120, 121.
[9] Ibid., p. 122.
[10] Allwoerden, Hist. M. Serveti, p. 109.
[11] Rilliet, p. 131. Such is the dispassionate judgment of one who has thoroughly
weighed the documentary and historical evidence of this melancholy affair, and who
has suffered himself to be blinded by no veneration for Calvin, or sympathy with his
work.
[12] Rilliet, p. 140.
[13] See previous chapter.
[14] Rilliet, p. 163.
[15] Rilliet, p. 171.
[16] Rilliet, pp. 179-181.
[17] Ibid., pp. 184, 185. Ruchat, tom. 6, p.41.
166
CHAPTER 22
[1] Rilliet, p. 189.
[2] The replies of the magistrates and pastors of the four cities will be found in
Ruchat, tom. 6, pp. 43-48; and Dr. Tweedie’s translation of Rilliet, Relation du Proces
Criminel, Etc. (Appendix).
[3] Gaberel, tom. 2, p. 256.
[4] Rilliet, p. 205.
[5] Ibid., p. 208.
[6] We have followed chiefly in this narration the authority of Rilliet, because he has
examined all the existing documents, and speaks throughout with the
dispassionateness of a judge. Any bias he indicates is in favour of Servetus, and
against Calvin.
[7] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 51. Henry, Life of Calvin, vol. 2, p. 218; Lond., 1849.
[8] tom. 2, p. 262.
[9] Rilliet, p. 212. Ruchat, tom. 5, p. 51. Henry, vol. 2, pp. 218, 219.
[10] Rilliet, p. 213.
[11] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 51.
[12] Allwoerden, p. 113.
[13] Gaberel, tom. 2, p. 264. - On both sides we see a resoluteness, a tenacity, and a
depth of conviction which many in this age will have great difficulty in
understanding. On the one side there is not a word of yielding; on the other not a word
of consolation. It does not seem to have occurred to Servetus, to his credit be it said,
to save himself by a false retractation; nor does Farel believe it possible to utter one
word of comfort or hope till Servetus has been brought to renounce those doctrines
which he held to be fatal. This imparts to the one side the air of obstinacy, to the other
the aspect of severity. The earnestness of the sixteenth century is, we believe, the key
to a scene that appears to us extraordinary.
[14] On the level or summit of Champel, says Rilliet, and not at the spot called
Champ du Bourreau, should be placed the theater of executions. The latter place was
the cemetery of the executed. (Relation, etc., p. 222, foot-note.)
[15] Servetus supplicated Christ as the “Son of the Eternal Father,” but he would not
acknowledge him as the “Eternal Son of the Father.” In short, he saw in the
Incarnation, not “God in the likeness of flesh,” but flesh in the likeness of God.
[16] Allwoerden, p. 123.
167
[17] See extract from Farel’s letter to Hottinger - Ruchat, tom. 6, pp. 51, 52. Calvini
Opp. - Refut. Error. Serveti.
[18] Allwoerden, p. 124.
[19] Ibid., p. 123.
[20] Ibid.
[21] “Everywhere else but in a Reformed city,” says Rilliet, “he [Servetus] might
have perished without his memory recalling anything but a funeral pile and a victim”
(p. 223). And we may add that, but for the “fierce light that burns” on Calvin, and the
fact that his official duty connected him with the trial, his name would have been
scarcely more associated with the death of Servetus than is that of Melancthon or
Viret, or any other Reformer who was then alive, and who shared the responsibility of
the affair equally with him.
[22] Bolsec, the bitterest of all Calvin’s enemies, speaking of Servetus, says that he
experienced “no regret at the death of so monstrous a heretic,” and adds that “he was
unworthy to converse with men.” (Bungener, p. 239.)
[23] We are precluded from hearing Calvin in his own defence, because the death of
Servetus was not brought as a charge against him during his lifetime. Still he refers
twice to this affair in rebutting general accusations, and it is only fair to hear what he
has to say. In his Declaration upon the Errors of Servetus, published a few months
after his execution, Calvin says: “I made no entreaties that he might be punished with
death, and to what I say, not only will all good people bear witness, but I defy even
the wicked to say the contrary.” In 1558 he published his Defence of the Secret
Providence of God. The book was translated into English by the Reverend Henry
Cole, D.D., of Clare Hall, Cambridge. In that work, pp. 128, 129 (English translation),
is the following passage, in which Calvin is appealing to his opponents: - “For what
particular act of mine you accuse me of cruelty I am anxious to know. I myself know
not, unless it be with reference to the death of your great master, Servetus. But that I
myself earnestly entreated that he might not be put to death his judges themselves are
witnesses, in the number of whom at that time two were his staunch favourers and
defenders.” This would be decisive, did the original fully bear out the English
rendering. Calvin’s words are - “Saevitiam meam in quo accuses, audire cupio: nisi
forte in magistri tui Serveti morte, pro quo tamen me fuisse deprecatum testes sunt
ipsi judices, ex quorum numero tunc duo erant strenui ejus patroni.” (Opp. Calvini,
vol. 8, p. 646.) The construction of the words, we think, requires that the important
clause should be read thus - I myself know not that act, unless it be with reference to
your master, Servetus, for whom I myself earnestly interceded, as his judges
themselves are witnesses, etc. If Calvin had said that he earnestly entreated that
Servetus should not be put to death, we should have been compelled to believe he had
changed his mind at the last moment. But we do not think his words imply this. As we
read them they perfectly agree with all the facts. Now that M. Rilliet de Candolle has
published the whole process, the following propositions are undeniable: 1. That Calvin wished for a capital sentence: he had intimated this as early as 1546 in
his letter to Farel.
168
2. That when the time came the Council of Geneva had taken both the ecclesiastical
and civil power into their own hands.
3. That the part Calvin acted was simply his statutory duty.
4. That he had no power either to condemn or save Servetus.
5. That the only party in Christendom that wished an acquittal were the Libertines.
6. That their object was the overthrow of the Reformation in Geneva.
7. That the sentence of the Council was grounded mainly on the political and social
consequences of Servetus’ teaching.
8. That Calvin laboured to substitute decapitation for burning.
CHAPTER 23
[1] Bonnet, Letters of Calvin, vol. 2, No. 327, and footnote, p. 414.
[2] Laval., Hist. of Reformation in France, vol. 1, p. 82; Lond., 1737.
[3] The names of these five students were Martial Alba, of Montauban; Peter
Ecrivain, of Gascony; Charles Favre, of Blanzac in Angoumois; Peter Naviheres, of
Limousin; and Bernard Seguin, of La Reole.
[4] Bonnet, vol. 2, p. 374, No. 308.
[5] Crespin, hist. des Mart. 3, 228-236; Geneva, 1570.
[6] Bungener, p. 38.
[7] Bonnet, vol. 2, pp. 168-184, No. 229. Bungener, (Calvin, pp. 272, 273.
[8] Bonnet, vol. 2, pp. 284-288, No. 273.
[9] See Cranmer’s letters to the leading theologians of Switzerland and Germany,
reproduced in the collections of his works, published by the Parker Society, as also
the collection of Zurich Letters, first series, vol. 1.
CHAPTER 24
[1] Henry, Life and Times of John Calvin, vol. 2, p. 32; Lond., 1349.
[2] Bungener, p. 282. “Doubtless, in many passages, better elucidations have since
been found, but it is precisely because his method has been followed.”
[3] “In sooth,” says Gaberel, “the work killed the workman.” When we think of only
one item of that labour - viz., ninety-six works - written too in the midst of sufferings,
it is enough, as Gaberel says, “to give one a dizziness of head.” “His health,” remarks
the same writer, “when he first arrived in his future country, was such as would have
reduced to inaction any ordinary man. But Calvin knew to subdue his sufferings by
the strength of his will. He exhibited in himself the phenomenon which is sometimes
169
seen in the case of great commanders whose dangerous maladies have given place to
health on the eve of battle; only what was abnormal in their case was Calvin’s normal
condition.” (Gaberel, Hist. Eglise de Geneve, vol. 1, p. 398.)
CHAPTER 25
[1] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 114.
[2] City Registers, January 9th, 1555.
[3] Roset, tom. 3, livr, 5, ch. 58 - John McCrie’s extracts.
[4] Calv. Epp., 385. Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 115.
[5] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 134.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid., p. 135. “Et qu’au reste route liberte hors de Christ estoit servitude
miserable.” (Roset, tom. 3, livr. 5, chap. 58-John McCrie’s extracts.)
[9] To the Author it appears a remarkable circumstance that the law giving the
spiritual supremacy to the Consistory should have been in abeyance for some time
before and some time after the affair of Servetus. This has not had the attention paid
to it which it deserves.
[10] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 135.
[11] Ibid., p. 136. Roset, livr. 5, chap. 65.
[12] Whilst the number of refugees was increasing at Geneva and the other towns of
Switzerland, their wants were provided for by liberal charitable donations. This was
the origin of the Bourse Etrangere, founded at Geneva, the revenues of which are
applied, even in our own day, the support of poor students, or the founding of new
schools. (Bonnet, Letters of Calvin, vl. 2, p. 430, foot-note.)
[13] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 136. Henry, Life of Calvin, vol. 2, p. 315.
[14] Ruchat, tom. 6, p: 137. Reset, tom. 3, livr. 5, chap. 64 - John McCrie’s extracts.
[15] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 137. Henry, vol. 2, p. 316.
[16] “Estoyent tous grands zelateurs de la liberte publique.” (Roset, tom. 3, livr. 5,
chap. 66-John McCrie’s extracts.)
[17] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 138.
[18] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 138.
170
CHAPTER 26
[1] MS. Letters, p. 377 - apud McCrie, Life of Knox, vol. 1. p. 195; Edin., 1831.
[2] Henry, Life of Calvin, vol. 2, p. 318.
[3] Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 189.
[4] Ibid., p. 190.
[5] Ruchat, tom. 6, pp. 192, 193.
[6] Bolsec, to avenge himself on the Reformer, and reconcile himself with Rome, to
which communion he returned, wrote a bitter and calumnious book, which he entitled
a Life of Calvin.
[7] Bungener, Calvin: his Life, etc., p. 237.
[8] Bungener, pp. 300, 301.
[9] Bungener, p. 302.
[10] Bungener, p. 302.
[11] Ibid., pp. 304, 305.
[12] Henry, Life of Calvin, vol. 1, p. 401.
[13] Ibid., p. 402.
CHAPTER 27
[1] Ruchat, tom. 6, p, 307.
[2] Roset, chap. 42 - John McCrie’s extracts. Ruchat, tom. 6, p. 307. Bungener, pp.
332-335.
[3] Bungener, pp. 335, 336.
[4] Hottinger, p. 890. Ruchat,tom. 7, p. 41.
[5] Henry, Life, vol. 2, p. 416.
[6] Ibid., vol. 1, p. 270.
[7] Bungener, pp. 339, 340.
[8] Ruchat,tom. 7, p. 44.
[9] Ibid.
171
CHAPTER 28
[1] “A son abbaye (cercle).” - Gaberel.
[2] Gaberel, tom. 1, p. 389.
[3] Gaberel, tom. 1, p. 390.
[4] Bungener, p. 226.
[5] Misson, vol. 2, part 1, p. 275. Besides the names mentioned in the text, Misson
gives a list of other Italian families which settled at Geneva - De la Rue, Diodati,
Boneti, Franconi, Martini, Rubbati, and many others. (Vol. 2, part 2, pp. 436, 437.)
CHAPTER 29
[1] Ruchat, tom. 7, p. 41. “Crato, one of our engravers, lately returned from
Wittenberg, brought letters from Luther to Bucer, in which he thus writes: - ‘Salute
for me most respectfully Sturm and Calvin, whose books I have read with singular
pleasure.’ Now recall what I have there said concerning the Eucharist; think of
Luther’s noble-heartedness. It will be easy for you to see how little cause those have
who so pertinaciously dissent from him. Philip, however, wrote thus: - ‘Luther and
Pomeranus have desired Calvin and Sturm to be greeted. Calvin has acquired great
favour with them.’ Philip, moreover, desired the messenger to tell me that certain
persons, in order to exasperate Martin, have shown him a passage in which he and his
friends were censured by me. Thereupon he examined the passage, and felt that
without doubt he was aimed at. At length he expressed himself thus - ‘I hope Calvin
will one day think better of us; but it is well meanwhile that he should have a proof of
our good disposition towards him.’ If such moderation do not affect us, we are stones.
For myself, I am melted, and have given myself the satisfaction of saying so in the
preface to the Epistle to the Romans. If you have not yet read Philip on the authority
of the Church, I desire you may read it. You will see how much more moderate he is
than he appears in his other writings. Capito, Bucer, Sturm, Hedio, Bedrot, and others,
salute thee most lovingly. Greet for me most warmly all the brethren. Most choice
brother, farewell. - Strasburg, 12th Dec. (1539).”
[2] Ruchat, tom. 7, p. 41.
[3] Spon, Not., pp. 309-311. Ruchat, tom. 7, p. 42.
[4] Ruchat, tom. 7, p. 43.
[5] Farel made yet one more journey. In the spring of the following year, 1565, he
went to Metz, the scene of his earliest labours, where he preached. The effort appears
to have been too much for him, for soon after his return to Neufchatel he died of
exhaustion.
[6] Gaberel, tom. 1, p. 405.
[7] Bungener, p. 348.
172
[8] When, a few years ago, the Author visited the Plain-palais at Geneva, he found a
pine tree, and a stone of about a foot square, with the letters “J. C.” inscribed on it,
marking the supposed spot of Calvin’s interment.
CHAPTER 30
[1] Beza, Vita Calvini. Ruchat,tom. 7, p. 46.
[2] Gaberel, tom. 1, p. 466; 1858-1862
[3] Geschichte der Presbyterial-und Synodalverfassung seit der Reformation. Von G.
V. Lechler, Knittilingen. Pages 6, 7. Leyden, 1854.
[4] Ibid., p. 8.
[5] For a statement in full of Luther’s views on the constitution of the Church, see
ante, bk. 9, chap. 12.
[6] Corp. Reform., ed. Bretschneider, vol. 4, p. 542.
[7] Corp. Reform., vol. 3, p. 965. Lechler, Geschichte der Presbyt., etc., pp. 8, 9.
[8] Lechler, Geschicte der Presbyt., etc., pp. 14-16.
[9] Christoffel, Life of Zwinqle, p. 160.
[10] Ibid., pp. 160-170.
173
BOOK FIFTEEN
THE JESUITS
174
CHAPTER 1
IGNATIUS LOYOLA
Protestantism had marshalled its spiritual forces a second time, and placing itself at
the heart of Christendom - at a point where three great empires met - it was labouring
with redoubled vigour to propagate itself on all sides. It was expelling from the air of
the world that ancient superstition, horn of Paganism and Judaism, which, like an
opaque veil, had darkened the human mind: a new light was breaking on the eyes and
a new life stirring in the souls of men: schools of learning, pure Churches, and free
nations were springing up in different parts of Europe; while hundreds of thousands of
disciples were ready, by their holy lives or heroic deaths, to serve that great cause
which, having broken their ancient fetters, had made them the heirs of a new liberty
and the citizens of a new world. It was clear that if let alone, for only a few years,
Protestantism would achieve a victory so complete that it would be vain for any
opposing power to think of renewing the contest. If that power which was seated in
Geneva was to be withstood, and the tide of victory which was bearing it to dominion
rolled back, there must be no longer delay in the measures necessary for achieving
such a result.
It was further clear that armies would never effect the overthrow of Protestantism.
The serried strength of Popish Europe had been put forth to crush it, but all in vain:
Protestantism had risen only the stronger from the blows which, it was hoped, would
overwhelm it. It was plain that other weapons must be forged, and other arms
mustered, than those which Charles and Francis had been accustomed to lead into the
field. It was now that the Jesuit corps was embodied. And it must be confessed that
these new soldiers did more than all the armies of France and Spain to stem the tide of
Protestant success, and bind victory once more to the banners of Rome.
We have seen Protestantism renew its energies: Rome, too, will show what she is
capable of doing.
As the tribes of Israel were approaching the frontier of the Promised Land, a Wizardprophet was summoned from the East to bar their entrance by his divinations and
enchantments. As the armies of Protestantism neared their final victory, there started
up the Jesuit host, with a subtler casuistry and a darker divination than Balaam’s, to
dispute with the Reformed the possession of Christendom. We shall consider that host
in its rise, its equipments, its discipline, its diffusion, and its successes.
Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde, the Ignatius Loyola of history, was the founder of the
Order of Jesus, or the Jesuits. His birth was nearly contemporaneous with that of
Luther. He was the youngest son of one of the highest Spanish grandees, and was
born in his father’s Castle of Loyola, in the province of Guipuzcoa, in 1491. His youth
was passed at the splendid and luxurious comfort of Ferdinand the Catholic. Spain at
that time was fighting to expel the Moors, whose presence on her soil she accounted
at once an insult to her independence and an affront to her faith. She was ending the
conflict in Spain, but continuing it in Africa. The naturally ardent soul of Ignatius was
set on fire by the religious fervour around him. He grew weary of the gaieties and
frivolities of the court; nor could even the dalliances and adventures of knight-errantry
satisfy him. He thirsted to earn renown on the field of arms. Embarking in the war
which at that time engaged the religious enthusiasm and military chivalry of his
175
countrymen, he soon distinguished himself by his feats of daring. Ignatius was
bidding fair to take a high place among warriors, and transmit to posterity a name
encompassed with the halo of military glory - but with that halo only. At this stage of
his career an incident befell him which cut short his exploits on the battlefield, and
transferred his enthusiasm and chivalry to another sphere.
It was the year 1521. Luther was uttering his famous “No!” before the emperor and
his princes, and summoning, as with trumpet-peal, Christendom to arms. It is at this
moment the young Ignatius, the intrepid soldier of Spain, and about to become the yet
more intrepid soldier of Rome, appears before its. He is shut up in the town of
Pamplona, which the French are besieging. The garrison are hard pressed: and after
some whispered consultations they openly propose to surrender. Ignatius deems the
very thought of such a thing dishonour; he denounces the proposed act of his
comrades as cowardice, and re-entering the citadel with a few companions as
courageous as himself, swears to defend it to the last drop of his blood. By-and-by
famine leaves him no alternative save to die within the walls, or to cut his way sword
in hand through the host of the besiegers. He goes forth and joins battle with the
French. As he is fighting desperately he is struck by a musket-ball, wounded
dangerously in both legs, and laid senseless on the field. Ignatius had ended the last
campaign he was ever to fight with the sword: his valour he was yet to display on
other fields, but he would mingle no more on those which resound with the clash of
arms and the roar of artillery.
The bravery of the fallen warrior had won the respect of the foe. Raising him from the
ground, where he was fast bleeding to death, they carried him to the hospital of
Pamplona, and tended him with care, till he was able to be conveyed in a litter to his
father’s castle. Thrice had he to undergo the agony of having his wounds opened.
Clenching his teeth and closing his fists he bade defiance to pain. Not a groan escaped
him while under the torture of the surgeon’s knife. But the tardy passage of the weeks
and months during which he waited the slow healing of his wounds, inflicted on his
ardent spirit a keener pain than had the probing-knife on his quivering limbs. Fettered
to his couch he chafed at the inactivity to which he was doomed. Romances of
chivalry and tales of war were brought him to beguile the hours. These exhausted,
other books were produced, but of a somewhat different character. This time it was
the legends of the saints that were brought the bed-rid knight. The tragedy of the early
Christian martyrs passed before him as he read. Next came the monks and hermits of
the Thebaic deserts and the Sinaitic mountains. With an imagination on fire he
perused the story of the hunger and cold they had braved; of the self-conquests they
had achieved; of the battles they had waged with evil spirits; of the glorious visions
that had been vouchsafed them; and the brilliant rewards they had gained in the
lasting reverence of earth and the felicities and dignities of heaven. He panted to rival
these heroes, whose glory was of a kind so bright, and pure, that compared with it the
renown of the battlefield was dim and sordid. His enthusiasm and ambition were as
boundless as ever, but now they were directed into a new channel. Henceforward the
current of his life was changed.
He had lain down “a knight of the burning sword” - to use the words of his
biographer, Vieyra - he rose up from it “a saint of the burning torch.” The change was
a sudden and violent one, and drew after it vast consequences not to Ignatius only,
and the men of his own age, but to millions of the human race in all countries of the
176
world, and in all the ages that have elapsed since. He who lay down on his bed the
fiery soldier of the emperor, rose from it; the yet more fiery soldier of the Pope. The
weakness occasioned by loss of blood, the morbidity produced by long seclusion, the
irritation of acute and protracted suffering, joined to a temperament highly excitable,
and a mind that had fed on miracles and visions till its enthusiasm had grown into
fanaticism, accounts in part for the transformation which Ignatius had undergone.
Though the balance of his intellect was now sadly disturbed, his shrewdness, his
tenacity, and his daring remained. Set free from the fetters of calm reason, these
qualities had freer scope than ever. The wing of his earthly ambition was broken, but
he could take his flight heavenward. If earth was forbidden him, the celestial domains
stood open, and there worthier exploits and more brilliant rewards awaited his
prowess.
The heart of a soldier plucked out, and that of a monk given him, Ignatius vowed,
before leaving his sick-chamber, to be the slave, the champion, the knight-errant of
Mary. She was the lady of his soul, and after the manner of dutiful knights he
immediately repaired to her shrine at Montserrat, hung up his arms before her image,
and spent the night in watching them. But reflecting that he was a soldier of Christ,
that great Monarch who had gone forth to subjugate all the earth, he resolved to eat no
other food, wear no other raiment than his King had done, and endure the same
hardships and vigils. Laying aside his plume, his coat of mail, his shield and sword,
he donned the cloak of the mendicant. “Wrapped in sordid rags,” says Duller, “an iron
chain and prickly girdle pressing on his naked body, covered with filth, with uncombed hair and untrimmed nails,” he retired to a dark mountain in the vicinity of
Manressa, where was a gloomy cave, in which he made his abode for some time.
There he subjected himself to all the penances and mortifications of the early
anchorites whose holiness he emulated. He wrestled with the evil spirit, talked to
voices audible to no ear but his own, fasted for days on end, till his weakness was
such that he fell into a swoon, and one day was found at the entrance of his cave,
lying on the ground, half dead.
The cave at Manressa recalls vividly to our memory the cell at Erfurt. The same
austerities, vigils, mortifications, and mental efforts and agonies which were
undergone by Ignatius Loyola, had but a very few years before this been passed
through by Martin Luther. So far the career of the founder of the Jesuits and that of
the champion of Protestantism were the same. Both had set before them a high
standard of holiness, and both had all but sacrificed life to reach it. But at the point to
which we have come the courses of the two men widely diverge. Both hitherto in their
pursuit of truth and holiness had travelled by the same road; but now we see Luther
turning to the Bible, “the light that shineth in a dark place,” “the sure Word of
Prophecy.” Ignatius Loyola, on the other hand, surrenders himself to visions and
revelations. As Luther went onward the light grew only the brighter around him. He
had turned his face to the sun. Ignatius had turned his gaze inward upon his own
beclouded mind, and verified the saying of the wise man, “He who wandereth out of
the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.”
Finding him half exanimate at the mouth of his cave, sympathizing friends carried
Ignatius to the town of Manressa. Continuing there the same course of penances and
self-mortifications which he had pursued in solitude, his bodily weakness greatly
increased, but he was more than recompensed by the greater frequency of those
177
heavenly visions with which he now began to be favoured. In Manressa he occupied a
cell in the Dominican convent, and as he was then projecting a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, he began to qualify himself for this holy journey by a course of the
severest penances. “He scourged himself thrice a day,” says Ranke, “he rose up to
prayer at midnight, and passed seven hours of each day on his knees.[1]
It will hardly do to say that this marvellous case is merely an instance of an unstrung
bodily condition, and of vicious mental stimulants abundantly supplied, where the
thirst for adventure and distinction was still unquenched. A closer study of the case
will show that there was in it an awakening of the conscience. There was a sense of
sin - its awful demerit, and its fearful award. Loyola, too, would seem to have felt the
“terrors of death, and the pains of hell.” He had spent three days in Montserrat in
confessing the sins of all his past life [2] But on a more searching review of his life,
finding that he had omitted many sins, he renewed and amplified his confession at
Manressa. If he found peace it was only for a short while; again his sense of sin would
return, and to such a pitch did his anguish rise, that thoughts of self-destruction, came
into his mind.
Approaching the window of his cell, he was about to throw himself from it, when it
suddenly flashed upon him that the act was abhorrent to the Almighty, and he
withdrew, crying out, “Lord, I will not do aught that may offend thee.”[3]
One day he awakened as from a dream. Now I know, said he to himself, that all these
torments are from the assaults of Satan. I am tossed between the promptings of the
good Spirit, who would have me be at peace, and the dark suggestions of the evil one,
who seeks continually to terrify me. I will have done with this warfare. I will forget
my past life; I will open these wounds not again. Luther in the midst of tempests as
terrible had come to a similar resolution. Awaking as from a frightful dream, he lifted
up his eyes and saw One who had borne his sins upon His cross: and like the mariner
who clings amid the surging billows to the rock, Luther was at peace because he had
anchored his soul on an Almighty foundation. But says Ranke, speaking of Loyola
and the course he had now resolved to pursue, “this was not so much the restoration
of his peace as a resolution, it was an engagement entered into by the will rather than
a conviction to which the submission of the will is inevitable. It required no aid from
Scripture, it was based on the belief he entertained of an immediate connection
between himself and the world of spirits. This would never have satisfied Luther. No
inspirations - no visions would Luther admit; all were in his opinion alike injurious.
He would have the simple, written, indubitable Word of God alone.[4]
From the hour that Ignatius resolved to think no more of his sins his spirtual horizon
began, as he believed, to clear up. All his gloomy terrors receded with the past which
he had consigned to oblivion. His bitter tears were dried up, and his heavy sighs no
longer resounded through the convent halls. He Was taken, he felt, into more intimate
communion with God. The heavens were opened that he might have a clearer insight
into Divine mysteries. True, the Spirit had revealed these things in the morning of the
world, through chosen and accredited channels, and inscribed them on the page of
inspiration that all might learn them from that infallible source. But Ignatius did not
search for these mysteries in the Bible; favoured above the sons of men, he received
them, as he thought, in revelations made specially to himself. Alas! his hour had come
and passed, and the gate that would have ushered him in amid celestial realities and
joys was shut, and henceforward he must dwell amid fantasies and dreams.
178
It was intimated to him one day that he should yet see the Saviour in person. He had
not long to wait for the promised revelation. At mass his eyes were opened, and he
saw the incarnate God in the Host. What farther proof did he need of
transubstantiation, seeing the whole process had been shown to him? A short while
thereafter the Virgin revealed herself with equal plainness to his bodily eyes. Not
fewer than thirty such visits did Loyola receive. One day as he sat on the steps of the
Church of St. Dominic at Manressa, singing a hymn to Mary, he suddenly fell into a
reverie, and had the symbol of the ineffable mystery of the Trinity shown to him,
under the figure of “three keys of a musical instrument.” He sobbed for very joy, and
entering the church, began publishing the miracle. On another occasion, as he walked
along the banks of the Llobregat, that waters Manressa, he sat down, and fixing his
eyes intently on the stream, many Divine mysteries became apparent to him, such “as
other men,” says his biographer Maffei, “can with great difficulty understand, after
much reading, long vigils, and study.”
This narration places us beside the respective springs of Protestantism and
Ultramontanism. The source from which the one is seen to issue is the Word of God.
To it Luther swore fealty, and before it he hung up his sword, like a true knight, when
he received ordination. The other is seen to be the product of a clouded yet proud and
ambitious imagination, and a wayward will. And therewith have corresponded the
fruits, as the past three centuries bear witness. The one principle has gathered round it
a noble host clad in the panoply of purity and truth. In the wake of the other has come
the dark army of the Jesuits.
179
CHAPTER 2
LOYOLA’S FIRST DISCIPLES
Among the wonderful things shown to Ignatius Loyola by special revelation was a
vision of two great camps. The centre of the one was placed at Babylon; and over it
there floated the gloomy ensign of the prince of darkness. The Heavenly King had
erected his standard on Mount Zion, and made Jerusalem his headquarters. In the war
of which these two camps were the symbols, and the issues of which were to be grand
beyond all former precedent, Loyola was chosen, he believed, to be one of the chief
captains. He longed to place himself at the centre of action. The way thither was long.
Wide oceans and gloomy deserts had to be traversed, and hostile tribes passed
through. But he had an iron will, a boundless enthusiasm, and what was more, a
Divine call - for such it seemed to him in his delusion. He set out penniless (1523),
and begging his bread by the way, he arrived at Barcelona. There he embarked in a
ship which landed him on the shore of Italy. Thence, travelling on foot, after long
months, and innumerable hardships, he entered in safety the gates of Jerusalem.
But the reception that awaited him in the “Holy City” was not such as he had fondly
anticipated. His rags, his uncombed locks, which almost hid his emaciated features,
but ill accorded with the magnificence of the errand which had brought him to that
shore. Loyola thought of doing in his single person what the armies of the Crusaders
had failed to do by their combined strength. The head of the Romanists in Jerusalem
saw in him rather the mendicant than the warrior, and fearing doubtless that should he
offer battle to the Crescent, he was more likely to provoke a tempest of Turkish
fanaticism than drive back the hordes of the infidel, he commanded him to desist
under the threat of excommunication. Thus withstood Loyola returned to Barcelona,
which he reached in 1524.
Derision and insults awaited his arrival in his native Spain. His countrymen failed to
see the grand aims he cherished beneath his rags; nor could they divine the splendid
career, and the immortality of fame, which were to emerge from this present squalor
and debasement. But not for one moment did Loyola’s own faith falter in his great
destiny. He had the art, known only to those fated to act a great part, of converting
impediments into helps, and extracting new experience and fresh courage from
disappointment. His repulsion from the “holy fields” had taught him that
Christendom, and not Asia, was the predestined scene of his warfare, and that he was
to do battle, not with the infidels of the East, but with the ever-growing hosts of
heretics in Europe. But to meet the Protestant on his own ground, and to fight him
with his own weapons, was a still more difficult task than to convert the Saracen. He
felt that meanwhile he was destitute of the necessary qualifications, but it was not too
late to acquire them.
Though a man of thirty-five, he put himself to school at Barcelona, and there, seated
amid the youth of the city, he prosecuted the study of Latin. Having acquired some
mastery of this tongue, he removed (1526) to the University of Alcala to commence
theology. In a little space he began to preach. Discovering a vast zeal in the
propagation of his tenets, and no little success in making disciples, male and female,
the Inquisition, deeming both the man and his aims somewhat mysterious, arrested
him. The order of the Jesuits was on the point of being nipped in the bud. But finding
in Loyola no heretical bias, the Fathers dismissed him on his promise of holding his
180
peace. He repaired to Salamanca, but there too he encountered similar obstacles. It
was not agreeable thus to champ the curb of privilege and canonical authority; but it
ministered to him a wholesome discipline. It sharpened his circumspection and
shrewdness, without in the least abating his ardour. Holding fast by his grand purpose,
he quitted his native land, and repairing in 1528 to Paris, entered himself as a student
in the College of St. Barbara.
In the world of Paris he became more practical; but the flame of his enthusiasm still
burned on. Through penance, through study, through ecstatic visions, and occasional
checks, he pursued with unshaken faith and unquenched resolution his celestial
calling as the leader of a mighty spiritual army, of which he was to be the creator, and
which was to wage victorious battle with the hosts of Protestantism. Loyola’s
residence in Paris, which was from 1528 to 1535, [1] coincides with the period of
greatest religious excitement in the French capital. Discussions were at that time of
hourly occurrence in the streets, in the halls of the Sorbonne, and at the royal table.
Loyola must have witnessed all the stirring and tragic scenes we have already
described; he may have stood by the stake of Berquin; he had seen with indignation,
doubtless, the saloons of the Louvre opened for the Protestant sermon; he had felt the
great shock which France received front the Placards, and taken part, it may be, in the
bloody rites of her great day of expiation. It is easy to see how, amid excitements like
these, Loyola’s zeal would burn stronger every hour; but his ardour did not hurry him
into action till all was ready. The blow he meditated was great, and time, patience,
and skill were necessary to prepare the instruments by whom he was to inflict it.
It chanced that two young students shared with Loyola his rooms, in the College of St.
Barbara. The one was Peter Fabre, from Savoy. His youth had been passed amid his
father’s flocks; the majesty of the silent mountains had sublimed his natural piety into
enthusiasm; and one night, on bended knee, under the star-bestudded vault, he
devoted himself to God in a life of study. The other companion of Loyola was Francis
Xavier, of Pamplona, in Navarre. For 500 years his ancestors had been renowned as
warriors, and his ambition was, by becoming a scholar, to enhance the fame of his
house by adding to its glory in arms the yet purer glory of learning. These two, the
humble Savoyard and the high-born Navarrese, Loyola had resolved should be his
first disciples.
As the artist selects his block, and with skilful eye and plastic hand bestows touch
after touch of the chisel, till at last the superfluous parts are cleared away, and the
statue stands forth so complete and perfect in its symmetry that the dead stone seems
to breathe, so did the future general of the Jesuit army proceed to mould and fashion
his two companions, Fabre and Xavier. The former was soft and pliable, and easily
took the shape which the master-hand sought to communicate. The other was
obdurate, like the rocks of his native mountains, but the patience and genius of Loyola
finally triumphed over his pride of family and haughtiness of spirit. He first of all won
their affection by certain disinterested services; he next excited their admiration by the
loftiness of his own asceticism; he then imparted to them his grand project, and fired
them with the ambition of sharing with him in the accomplishment of it. Having
brought them thus far he entered them on a course of discipline, the design of which
was to give them those hardy qualities of body and soul, which would enable them to
fulfil their lofty vocation as leaders in an army, every soldier in which was to be tried
and hardened in the fire as he himself had been. He exacted of them frequent
181
confession; he was equally rigid as regarded their participation in the Eucharist; the
one exercise trained them in submission, the other fed the flame of their zeal, and thus
the two cardinal qualities which Loyola demanded in all his followers were developed
side by side. Severe bodily mortifications were also enjoined upon them. “Three days
and three nights did he compel them to fast. During the severest winters, when
carriages might be seen to traverse the frozen Seine, he would not permit Fabre the
slightest relaxation of discipline.” Thus it was that he mortified their pride, taught
them to despise wealth, schooled them to brave danger and contemn luxury, and
inured them to cold, hunger, and toil; in short, he made them dead to every passion
save that of the “Holy War,” in which they were to bear arms.
A beginning had been made. The first recruits had been enrolled in that army which
was speedily to swell into a mighty host, and unfurl its gloomy ensigns and win its
dismal triumphs in every land. We can imagine Loyola’s joy as he contemplated these
two men, fashioned so perfectly in his own likeness. The same master-artificer who
had moulded these two could form others - in short, any number. The list was soon
enlarged by the addition of four other disciples. Their names - obscure then, but in
after-years to shine with a fiery splendour - were Jacob Lainez, Alfonso Salmeron,
Nicholas Bobadilla, and Simon Rodriguez. The first three were Spaniards, the fourth
was a Portuguese. They were seven in all; but the accession of two others increased
them to nine: and now they resolved on taking their first step.
On the 15th of August, 1534, Loyola, followed by his nine companions, entered the
subterranean chapel of the Church of Montmartre, at Paris, and mass being said by
Fabre, who had received priest’s orders, the company, after the usual vow of chastity
and poverty, took a solemn oath to dedicate their lives to the conversion of the
Saracens, or, should circumstances make that attempt impossible, to lay themselves
and their services unreservedly at the feet of the Pope. They sealed their oath by now
receiving the Host. The day was chosen because it was the anniversary of the
Assumption of the Virgin, and the place because it was consecrated to Mary, the
queen of saints and angels, from whom, as Loyola firmly believed, he had received
his mission. The army thus enrolled was little, and it was great. It was little when
counted, it was great when weighed. In sublimity of aim, and strength of faith - using
the term in its mundane sense - it wielded a power before which nothing on earth one principle excepted - should be able to stand.[2]
To foster the growth of this infant Hercules, Loyola had prepared beforehand his book
entitled Spiritual Exercises. This is a body of rules for teaching men how to conduct
the work of their “conversion.” It consists of four grand meditations, and the penitent,
retiring into solitude, is to occupy absorbingly his mind on each in succession, during
the space of the rising and setting of seven suns. It may be fitly styled a journey from
the gates of destruction to the gates of Paradise, mapped out in stages so that it might
be gone in the short period of four weeks. There are few more remarkable books in
the world. It combines the self-denial and mortification of the Brahmin with the
asceticism of the anchorite, and the ecstasies of the schoolmen, it professes, like the
Koran, to be a revelation. “The Book of Exercises,” says a Jesuit, “was truly written
by the finger of God, and delivered to Ignatius by the Holy Mother of God.”[3]
The Spiritual Exercises, we have said, was a body of rules by following which one
could effect upon himself that great change which in Biblical and theological
language is termed “conversion.” The book displayed on the part of its author great
182
knowledge of the human heart. The method prescribed was an adroit imitation of that
process of conviction, of alarm, of enlightenment, and of peace, through which the
Holy Spirit leads the soul - that undergoes that change in very deed. This Divine
transformation was at that hour taking place in thousands of instances in the
Protestant world. Loyola, like the magicians of old who strove to rival Moses,
wrought with his enchantments to produce the same miracle. Let us observe how he
proceeded.
The person was, first of all, to go aside from the world, by entirely isolating himself
from all the affairs of life. In the solemn stillness of his chamber he was to engage in
four meditations each day, the first at daybreak, the last at midnight. To assist the
action of the imagination on the soul, the room was to be artificially darkened, and on
its walls were to be suspended pictures of hell and other horrors. Sin, death, and
judgment were exclusively to occupy the thoughts of the penitent during the first
week of his seclusion. He was to ponder upon them till in a sense “he beheld the vast
conflagration of hell; its wailings, shrieks, and blasphemies; felt the worm of
conscience; in fine, touched those fires by whose contact the souls of the reprobate are
scorched.”
The second week he was to withdraw his eye from these dreadful spectacles and fix it
upon the Incarnation. It is no longer the wailings of the lost that fill the ear as he sits
in his darkened chamber, it is the song of the angel announcing the birth of the Child,
and “Mary acquiescing in the work of redemption.” At the feet of the Trinity he is
directed to pour out the expression of the gratitude and praise with which continued
meditation on these themes causes his soul to overflow.
The third week is to witness the solemn act of the soul’s enrolment in the army of that
Great Captain, who “bowed the heavens and came down” in his Incarnation. Two
cities are before the devotee - Jerusalem and Babylon - in which will he choose to
dwell? Two standards are displayed in his sight - under which will he fight? Here a
broad and brave pennon floats freely on the wind. Its golden folds bear the motto,
“Pride, Honour, Riches.” Here is another, but how unlike the motto inscribed upon it,
“Poverty, Shame, Humility.” On all sides resounds the cry “To arms.” He must make
his choice, and he must make it now, for the seventh sun of his third week is
hastening to the setting. It is under the banner of Poverty that he elects to win the
incorruptible crown.
Now comes his fourth and last week, and with it there comes a great change in the
subjects of his meditation. He is to dismiss all gloomy ideas, all images of terror; the
gates of Hades are to be closed, and those of a new life opened. It is morning with
him, it is a spring-time that has come to him, and he is to surround himself with light,
and flowers, and odours. It is the Sabbath of a spiritual creation; he is to rest, and to
taste in that rest the prelude of the everlasting joys. This mood of mind he is to
cultivate while seven suns rise and set upon him. He is now perfected and fit to fight
in the army of the Great Captain.
A not dissimilar course of mental discipline, as our history has already shown, did
Wycliffe, Luther, and Calvin pass through before they became captains in the army of
Christ. They began in a horror of great darkness; through that cloud there broke upon
them the revelation of the “Crucified;” throwing the arms of their faith around the
Tree of Expiation, and clinging to it, they entered into peace, and tasted the joys to
183
come. How like, yet how unlike, are these two courses! In the one the penitent finds a
Saviour on whom he leans; in the other he lays hold on a rule by which he works, and
works as methodically and regularly as a piece of machinery. Beginning on a certain
day, he finishes, like stroke of clock, duly as the seventh sun of the fourth week is
sinking below the horizon. We trace in the one the action of the imagination, fostering
one overmastering passion into strength, till the person becomes capable of attempting
the most daring enterprises, and enduring the most dreadful sufferings. In the other we
behold the intervention of a Divine Agent, who plants in the soul a new principle, and
thence educes a new life. The war in which Loyola and his nine companions enrolled
themselves when on the 15th of August, 1534, they made their vow in the church of
Montmarte, was to be waged against the Saracens of the East. They acted so far on
their original design as to proceed to Venice, where they learned that their project was
meanwhile impracticable. The war which had just broken out between the Republic
and the Porte had closed the gates of Asia. They took this as an intimation that the
field of their operations was to be in the Western world. Returning on their path they
now directed their steps towards Rome. In every town through which they passed on
their way to the Eternal City, they left behind them an immense reputation for sanctity
by their labours in the hospitals, and their earnest addresses to the populace on the
streets. As they drew nigh to Rome, and the hearts of some of his companions were
beginning to despond, Loyola was cheered by a vision, in which Christ appeared and
said to him, “In Rome will I be gracious unto thee.”[4] The hopes this vision inspired
were not to be disappointed. Entering the gates of the capital of Christendom, and
throwing themselves at the feet of Paul III., they met a most gracious reception. The
Pope hailed their offer of assistance as most opportune. Mighty dangers at that hour
threatened the Papacy, and with the half of Europe in revolt, and the old monkish
orders become incapable, this new and unexpected aid seemed sent by Heaven. The
rules and constitution of the new order were drafted, and ultimately approved, by the
Pope. Two peculiarities in the constitution of the proposed order specially
recommended it in the eyes of Paul III. The first was its vow of unconditional
obedience. The society swore to obey the Pope as an army obeys its general. It was
not canonical but military obedience which its members offered him. They would go
to whatsoever place, at whatsoever time, and on whatsoever errand he should be
pleased to order them. They were, in short, to be not so much monks as soldiers. The
second peculiarity was that their services were to be wholly gratuitous; never would
they ask so much as a penny from the Papal See.
It was resolved that the new order should bear the name of The Company of Jesus.
Loyola modestly declined the honour of being accounted its founder. Christ himself,
he affirmed, had dictated to him its constitution in his cave at Manressa. He was its
real Founder: whose name then could it so appropriately bear as His? The bull
constituting it was issued on the 27th of September, 1540, and was entitled Regimini
Militantis Eeclesiae,[5] and bore that the persons it enrolled into an army were to bear
“the standard of the Cross, to wield the arms of God, to serve the only Lord, and the
Roman Pontiff, His Vicar on earth.”
184
CHAPTER 3
ORGANIZATION AND TRAINING OF THE JESUITS
The long-delayed wishes of Loyola had been realised, and his efforts, abortive in the
past, had now at length been crowned with success. The Papal bull had given formal
existence to the order, what Christ had done in heaven his Vicar had ratified on the
earth. But Loyola was too wise to think that all had been accomplished; he knew that
he was only at the beginning of his labours. In the little band around him he saw but
the nucleus of an army that would multiply and expand till one day it should be as the
stars in multitude, and bear the standard of victory to every land on earth. The gates of
the East were meanwhile closed against him; but the Western world would not always
set limits to the triumphs of his spiritual arms. He would yet subjugate both
hemispheres, and extend the dominion of Rome from the rising to the setting sun.
Such were the schemes that Loyola, who hid under his mendicant’s cloak an ambition
vast as Alexander’s, was at that moment revolving. Assembling his comrades one day
about this time, he addressed them, his biographer Bouhours tells us, in a long speech,
saying, “Ought we not to conclude that we are called to win to God, not only a single
nation, a single country, but all nations, all the kingdoms of the world?” [1]
An army to conquer the world, Loyola was forming. But he knew that nothing is
stronger than its weakest part, and therefore the soundness of every link, the thorough
discipline and tried fidelity of every soldier in this mighty host was with him an
essential point. That could be secured only by making each individual, before
enrolling himself, pass through an ordeal that should sift, and try, and harden him to
the utmost.
But first the Company of Jesus had to elect a head. The dignity was offered to Loyola.
He modestly declined the post, as Julius Caesar did the diadem. After four days spent
in prayer and penance, his disciples returned and humbly supplicated him to be their
chief. Ignatius, viewing this as an intimation of the will of God, consented. He was
the first General of the order. Few royal sceptres bring with them such an amount of
real power as this election bestowed on Loyola. The day would come when the tiara
itself would bow before that yet mightier authority which was represented by the cap
of the General of the Jesuits.
The second step was to frame the “Constitutions” of the society. In this labour Loyola
accepted the aid of Lainez, the ablest of his converts. Seeing it was at God’s
command that Ignatius had planted the tree of Jesuitism in the spiritual vineyard, it
was to be expected that the Constitutions of the Company would proceed from the
same high source. The Constitutions were declared to be a revelation from God, the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit.[2] This gave them absolute authority over the members,
and paved the way for the substitution of the Constitution and canons of the Society
of Jesus in the room of Christianity itself. These canons and Instructions were not
published: they were not communicated to all the members of the society even; they
were made known to a few only - in all their extent to a very few. They took care to
print them in their own college at Rome, or in their college at Prague; and if it
happened that they were printed elsewhere, they secured and destroyed the edition. “I
can not discover,” says M. de la Chalotais, “that the Constitutions of the Jesuits have
ever been seen or examined by any tribunal whatsoever, secular or ecclesiastic; by
any sovereign - not even by the Court of Chancery of Prague, when permission was
185
asked to print them … They have taken all sorts of precautions to keep them a
secret.[3] For a century they were concealed from the knowledge of the world; and it
was an accident which at last dragged them into the light from the darkness in which
they had so long been buried.
It is not easy, perhaps it is not possible, to say what number of volumes the
Constitutions of the Jesuits form. M. Louis Rene de la Chalotais, Procurator-General
of King Louis XV., in his Report on the Constitutions of the Jesuits’, given in to the
Parliament of Bretagne, speaks of fifty volumes folio. That was in the year 1761, or
221 years after the founding of the order. This code, then enormous, must be greatly
more so now, seeing every bull and brief of the Pope addressed to the society, every
edict of its General, is so much more added to a legislation that is continually
augmenting. We doubt whether any member of the order is found bold enough to
undertake a complete study of them, or ingenious enough to reconcile all their
contradictions and inconsistencies. Prudently abstaining from venturing into a
labyrinth from which he may never emerge, he simply asks, not what do the
Constitutions say, but what does the General command? Practically the will of his
chief is the code of the Jesuit.
We shall first consider the powers of the General. The original bull of Paul III.
constituting the Company gave to “Ignatius de Loyola, with nine priests, his
companions,” the power to make Constitutions and particular rules, and also to alter
them. The legislative power thus rested in the hands of the General and his company that is, in a “Congregation” representing them. But when Loyola died, and Lainez
succeeded him as General, one of his first acts was to assemble a Congregation, and
cause it to be decided that the General only had the right to make rules.[4] This
crowned the autocracy of the General, for while he has the power of legislating for all
others, no one may legislate for him. He acts without control, without responsibility,
without law. It is true that in certain cases the society may depose the General. But it
can not exercise its powers unless it be assembled, and the General alone can
assemble the Congregation. The whole order, with all its authority, is, in fact,
comprised in him. In virtue of his prerogative the General can command and regulate
everything in the society. He may make special Constitutions for the advantage of the
society, and he may alter them, abrogate them, and make new ones, dating them at
any time he pleases. These new rules must be regarded as confirmed by apostolic
authority, not merely from the time they were made, but the time they are dated.
The General assigns to all provincials, superiors, and members of the society, of
whatever grade, the powers they are to exercise, the places where they are to labour,
the missions they are to discharge, and he may annul or confirm their acts at his
pleasure. He has the right to nominate provincials and rectors, to admit or exclude
members, to say what proffered dignity they are or are not to accept, to change the
destination of legacies, and, though to give money to his relatives exposes him to
deposition, “he may yet give alms to any amount that he may deem conducive to the
glory of God.” He is invested moreover with the entire government and regulation of
the colleges of the society. He may institute missions in all parts of the world. When
commanding in the name of Jesus Christ, and in virtue of obedience, he commands
under the penalty of mortal and venial sin. From his orders there is no appeal to the
Pope. He can release from vows; he can examine into the consciences of the
members; but it is useless to particularise - the General is the society.[5]
186
The General alone, we have said, has power to make laws, ordinances, and
declarations. This power is theoretically bounded, though practically absolute. It has
been declared that everything essential (“Substantia Institutionis”) to the society is
immutable, and therefore removed beyond the power of the General. But it has never
yet been determined what things belong to the essence of the institute. Many attempts
have been made to solve this question, but no solution that is comprehensible has ever
been arrived at; and so long as this question remains without an answer, the powers of
the General will remain without a limit.
Let us next attend to the organization of the society. The Jesuit monarchy covers the
globe. At its head, as we have said, is a sovereign, who rules over all, but is himself
ruled over by no one. First come six grand divisions termed Assistanzen, satrapies or
princedoms. These comprehend the space stretching from the Indus to the
Mediterranean; more particularly India, Spain and Portugal, Germany and France,
Italy and Sicily, Poland and Lithuania.[6] Outside this area the Jesuits have
established missions. The heads of these six divisions act as coadjutors to their
General; they are staff or cabinet.
These six great divisions are subdivided into thirty-seven Provinces.[7] Over each
province is placed a chief, termed a Provincial. The provinces are again subdivided
into a variety of houses or establishments. First come the houses of the Professed,
presided over by their Provost. Next come the colleges, or houses of the novices and
scholars, presided over by their Rector or Superior. Where these can not be
established, “residences” are erected, for the accommodation of the priests who
perambulate the district, preaching and hearing confessions. And lastly may be
mentioned “mission-houses,” in which Jesuits live unnoticed as secular clergy, but
seeking, by all possible means, to promote the interests of the society.[8]
From his chamber in Rome the eye of the General surveys the world of Jesuitism to
its farthest bounds; there is nothing done in it which he does not see; there is nothing
spoken in it which he does not hear. It becomes us to note the means by which this
almost superhuman intelligence is acquired. Every year a list of the houses and
members of the society, with the name, talents, virtues, and failings of each, is laid
before the General. In addition to the annual report, every one of the thirty-seven
provincials must send him a report monthly of the state of his province, he must
inform him minutely of its political and ecclesiastical condition. Every superior of a
college must report once every three months. The heads of houses of residence, and
houses of novitiates, must do the same. In short, from every quarter of his vast
dominions come a monthly and a tri-monthly report. If the matter reported on has
reference to persons outside the society, the Constitutions direct that the provincials
and superiors shall write to the General in cipher. “Such precautions are taken against
enemies,” says M. de Chalotais. “Is the system of the Jesuits inimical to all
governments?”
Thus to the General of the Jesuits the world lies “naked and open.” He sees by a
thousand eyes, he hears by a thousand ears; and when he has a behest to execute, he
can select the fittest agent from an innumerable host, all of whom are ready to do his
bidding. The past history, the good and evil qualities of every member of the society,
his talents, his dispositions, his inclinations, his tastes, his secret thoughts, have all
been strictly examined, minutely chronicled, and laid before the eye of the General. It
is the same as if he were present in person, and had seen and conversed with each.
187
All ranks, from the nobleman to the day-labourer; all trades, from the opulent banker
to the shoemaker and porter; all professions, from the stolid dignitary and the learned
professor to the cowled mendicant; all grades of literary men, from the philosopher,
the mathematician, and the historian, to the schoolmaster and the reporter on the
provincial newspaper, are enrolled in the society. Marshalled, and in continual
attendance, before their chief, stand this host, so large in numbers, and so various in
gifts. At his word they go, and at his word they come, speeding over seas and
mountains, across frozen steppes, or burning plains, on his errand. Pestilence, or
battle, or death may lie on his path, the Jesuit’s obedience is not less prompt.
Selecting one, the General sends him to the royal cabinet. Making choice of another,
he opens to him the door of Parliament. A third he enrols in a political club; a fourth
he places in the pulpit of a church, whose creed he professes that he may betray it; a
fifth he commands to mingle in the saloons of the literati; a sixth he sends to act his
part in the Evangelical Conference; a seventh he seats beside the domestic hearth; and
an eighth he sends afar off to barbarous tribes, where, speaking a strange tongue, and
wearing a rough garment, he executes, amidst hardships and perils, the will of his
superior. There is no disguise which the Jesuit will not wear, no art he will not
employ, no motive he will not feign, no creed he will not profess, provided only he
can acquit himself a true soldier in the Jesuit army, and accomplish the work on which
he has been sent forth. “We have men,” exclaimed a General exultingly, as he glanced
over the long roll of philosophers, orators, statesmen, and scholars who stood before
him, ready to serve him in the State or in the Church, in the camp or in the school, at
home or abroad - “We have men for martyrdom if they be required.”
No one can be enrolled in the Society of Jesus till he has undergone a severe and
long-continued course of training. Let us glance at the several grades of that great
army, and the preparatory discipline in the case of each. There are four classes of
Jesuits. We begin with the lowest. The Novitiates are the first in order of admission,
the last in dignity. When one presents himself for admission into the order, a strict
scrutiny takes place into his talents, his disposition, his family, his former life; and if
it is seen that he is not likely to be of service to the society, he is at once dismissed. If
his fitness appears probable, he is received into the House of Primary Probation.[9]
Here he is forbidden all intercourse with the servants within and his relations outside
the house. A Compend of the Institutions is submitted for his consideration; the full
body of laws and regulations being withheld from him as yet. If he possesses property
he is told that he must give it to the poor - that is, to the society. His tact and address,
his sound judgment and business talent, his health and bodily vigour, are all closely
watched and noted; above all, his obedience is subjected to severe experiment. If he
acquits himself on the trial to the satisfaction of his examiners, he receives the
Sacrament, and is advanced to the House of Second Probation.[10]
Here the discipline is of a yet severer kind. The novitiate first devotes a certain period
to confession of sins and meditation. He next fulfils a course of service in the
hospitals, learning humility by helping the poor and ministering at the beds of the
sick. To further his advance in this grace, he next spends a certain term in begging his
bread from door to door. Thus; he learns to live on the coarsest fare and to sleep on
the hardest couch. To perfect himself in the virtue of self-abnegation, he next
discharges for awhile the most humiliating and repulsive offices in the house in which
he lives. And now, this course of service ended, he is invited to show his powers of
operating on others, by communicating instruction to boys in Christian doctrine, by
188
hearing confessions, and by preaching in public. This course is to last two years,
unless the superior should see fit to shorten it on the ground of greater zeal, or
superior talent.
The period of probation at an end, the candidate for admission into the Order of Jesus
is to present himself before the superior, furnished with certificates from those under
whose eye he has fulfilled the six experiments, or trials, as to the manner in which he
has acquitted himself. If the testimonials should prove satisfactory to the superior, the
novitiate is enrolled, not as yet in the Company of the Jesuits, but among the
Indifferents. He is presumed to have no choice as regards the place he is to occupy in
the august corps he aspires to enter; he leaves that entirely to the decision of the
superior; he is equally ready to stand at the head or at the foot of the body; to
discharge the most menial or the most dignified service; to play his part in the saloons
of the great, encompassed by luxury and splendour, or to discharge his mission in the
hovels of the poor, in the midst of misery and filth; to remain at home, or to go to the
ends of the earth. To have a preference, though unexpressed, is to fall into deadly sin.
Obedience is not only the letter of his vow, it is the lesson that his training has written
on his heart.[11]
This further trial gone through, the approved novitiate may now take the three simple
vows - poverty, chastity, and obedience - which, with certain modifications, he must
ever after renew twice every year. The novitiate is now admitted into the class of
Scholars. The Jesuits have colleges of their own, amply endowed by wealthy
devotees, and to one of these the novitiate is sent, to receive instruction in the higher
mysteries of the society. His intellectual powers are here more severely tested and
trained, and according to the genius and subtlety he may display, and his progress in
his studies, so is the post assigned him in due time in the order. “The qualities to be
desired and commended in the scholars,” say the Constitutions, “are acuteness of
talent, brilliancy of example, and soundness of body.”[12] They are to be chosen men,
picked from the flower of the troop, and the General has absolute power in admitting
or dismissing them according to his expectations of their utility in promoting the
designs of the institute.[13] Having finished his course, first as a simple scholar, and
secondly as an approved scholar, he renews his three vows, and passes into the third
class, or Coadjutors.
The coadjutors are divided into temporal and spiritual. The temporal coadjutor is
never admitted into holy orders.[14] Such are retained to minister in the lowest
offices. They become college cooks, porters, or purveyors. For these and similar
purposes it is held expedient that they should be “lovers of virtue and perfection,” and
“content to serve the society in the careful office of a Martha.”[15] The spiritual
coadjutor must be a priest of adequate learning, that he may assist the society in
hearing confessions, and giving instructions in Christian doctrine. It is from among
the spiritual coadjutors that the rectors of colleges are usually selected by the General.
It is a further privilege of theirs that they may be assembled in congregation to
deliberate with the Professed members in matters of importance,[16] but no vote is
granted them in the election of a General.
Having passed with approbation the many stringent tests to which he is here
subjected, in order to perfect his humility and obedience, and having duly deposited in
the exchequer of the society whatever property he may happen to possess, the spiritual
coadjutor, if a candidate for the highest grade, is admitted to the oblation of his vows,
189
which are similar in form and substance to those he has already taken, with this
exception, that they assign to the General the place of God. “I promise,” so runs the
oath, “to the Omnipotent God, in presence of his virgin mother, and of all the
heavenly hierarchy, and to thee, Father General of the Society of Jesus, holding the
place of God,” [17] etc. With this oath sworn on its threshold, he enters the inner
circle of the society, and is enrolled among the Professed.
The Professed Members constitute the society par excellence. They alone know its
deepest secrets, and they alone wield its highest powers. But perfection in Jesuitism
can not be reached otherwise than by the loss of manhood. Will, judgment,
conscience, liberty, all the Jesuit lays down at the feet of his General. It is a
tremendous sacrifice, but to him the General is God. He now takes his fourth, or
peculiar vow, in which he binds himself to go, without question, delay, or repugnance,
to whatever region of the earth, and on whatever errand, the Pope may be pleased to
send him. This he promises to the Omnipotent God, and to his General, holding the
place of God. The wisdom, justice, righteousness of the command he is not to
question; he is not even to permit his mind to dwell upon it for a moment; it is the
command of his General, and the command of his General is the precept of the
Almighty. His superiors are “over him in the place of the Divine Majesty.”[18] “In
not fewer than 500 places in the Constitutions,” says M. de la Chalotais, “are
expressions used similar to the following: - “We must always see Jesus Christ in the
General; be obedient to him in all his behests, as if they came directly from God
himself.’”[19] When the command of the superior goes forth, the person to whom it is
directed “is not to stay till he has finished the letter his pen is tracing,” say the
Constitutions; “he must give instant compliance, so that holy obedience may be
perfect in us in every point - in execution, in will, in intellect.”[20] Obedience is
styled “the tomb of the will,” “a blessed blindness, which causes the soul to see the
road to salvation,” and the members of the society are taught to “immolate their will
as a sheep is sacrificed.” The Jesuit is to be in the hands of his superior, “as the axe is
in the hands of the wood-cutter,” or “as a staff is in the hands of an old man, which
serves him wherever and in whatever thing he is pleased to use it.”
In fine, the Constitutions enjoin that “they who live under obedience shall permit
themselves to be moved and directed under Divine Providence by their superiors just
as if they were a corpse, which allows itself to be moved and handled in any
way.”[21] The annals of mankind do not furnish another example of a despotism so
finished. We know of no other instance in which the members of the body are so
numerous, or the ramifications so wide, and yet the centralisation and cohesion so
perfect.
We have traced at some length the long and severe discipline which every member
must undergo before being admitted into the select class that by way of eminence
constitute the society. Before arriving on the threshold of the inner circle of Jesuitism,
three times has the candidate passed through that terrible ordeal - first as a novice,
secondly as a scholar, thirdly as a coadjutor. Is his training held to be complete when
he is admitted among the Professed? No: a fourth time must he undergo the same
dreadful process. He is thrown back again into the crucible, and kept amid its fires, till
pride, and obstinacy, and self-will, and love of ease - till judgment, soul, and
conscience have all been purged out of him, and then he comes forth, fully refined,
completely attempered and hardened, “a vessel fully fitted” for the use of his General;
190
prepared to execute with a conscience that never remonstrates his most terrible
command, and to undertake with a will that never rebels the most difficult and
dangerous enterprises he may assign him. In the words of an eloquent writer - “Talk
of drilling and discipline! why, the drilling and the discipline which gave to
Alexander the men that marched in triumph from Macedon to the Indus; to Caesar,
the men that marched in triumph from Rome to the wilds of Caledonia; to Hannibal,
the men that marched in triumph from Carthage to Rome; to Napoleon, the men
whose achievements surpassed in brilliance the united glories of the soldiers of
Macedon, of Carthage, and of Rome; and to Wellington, the men who smote into the
dust the very flower of Napoleon’s chivalry - why, the drilling and the discipline of all
these combined can not, in point of stern, rigid, and protracted severity, for a moment
be compared to the drilling and discipline which fitted and moulded men for
becoming full members of the militant institute of the Jesuits.”[22]
Such Loyola saw was the corps that was needed to confront the armies of
Protestantism and turn back the advancing tide of light and liberty. Touched with a
Divine fire, the disciples of the Gospel attained at once to a complete renunciation of
self, and a magnanimity of soul which enabled them to brave all dangers and endure
all sufferings, and to bear the standard of a recovered Gospel over deserts and oceans,
in the midst of hunger and pestilence, of dungeons and racks and fiery stakes. It was
vain to think of overcoming warriors like these unless by combatants of an equal
temper and spirit, and Loyola set himself to fashion such. He could not clothe them
with the panoply of light, he could not inspire them with that holy and invincible
courage which springs from faith, nor could he so enkindle their souls with the love of
the Saviour, and the joys of the life eternal, as that they should despise the sufferings
of time; but he could give them their counterfeits: he could enkindle them with
fanaticism, inspire them with a Luciferian ambition, and so pervert and indurate their
souls by evil maxims, and long and rigorous training, that they should be insensible to
shame and pain, and would welcome suffering and death. Such were the weapons of
the men he sent forth to the battle.
191
CHAPTER 4
MORAL CODE OF THE JESUITS - PROBABILISM, ETC.
We have not yet surveyed the full and perfect equipment of those troops which
Loyola sent forth to prosecute the war against Protestantism. Nothing was left
unthought of and unprovided for which might assist them in covering their opponents
with defeat, and crowning themselves with victory. They were set free from every
obligation, whether imposed by the natural or the Divine law. Every stratagem,
artifice, and disguise were lawful to men in whose favour all distinction between right
and wrong had been abolished. They might assume as many shapes as Proteus, and
exhibit as many colours as the chameleon. They stood apart and alone among the
human race. First of all, they were cut off from country. Their vow bound them to go
to whatever land their General might send them, and to remain there as long as he
might appoint. Their country was the society. They were cut off from family and
friends. Their vow taught them to forget their father’s house, and to esteem
themselves holy only when every affection and desire which nature had planted in
their breasts had been plucked up by the roots. They were cut off from property and
wealth. For although the society was immensely rich, its individual members
possessed nothing. Nor could they cherish the hope of ever becoming personally
wealthy, seeing they had taken a vow of perpetual poverty. If it chanced that a rich
relative died, and left them as heirs, the General relieved them of their vow, and sent
them back into the world, for so long a time as might enable them to take possession
of the wealth of which they had been named the heirs; but this done, they returned
laden with their booty, and, resuming their vow as Jesuits, laid every penny of their
newly-acquired riches at the feet of the General.
They were cut off, moreover, from the State. They were discharged from all civil and
national relationships and duties. They were under a higher code than the national one
- the Institutions namely, which Loyola had edited, and the Spirit of God had inspired;
and they were the subjects of a higher monarch than the sovereign of the nation - their
own General. Nay, more, the Jesuits were cut off even from the Pope. For if their
General “held the place of the Omnipotent God,” much more did he hold the place of
“his Vicar.” And so was it in fact; for soon the members of the Society of Jesus came
to recognize no laws but their own, and though at their first formation they professed
to have no end but the defence and glory of the Papal See, it came to pass when they
grew to be strong that, instead of serving the tiara, they compelled the tiara to serve
the society, and made their own wealth, power, and dominion the one grand object of
their existence. They were a Papacy within the Papacy - a Papacy whose organization
was more perfect, whose instincts were more cruel, whose workings were more
mysterious, and whose dominion was more destructive than that of the old Papacy.
So stood the Society of Jesus. A deep and wide gulf separated it from all other
communities and interests. Set free from the love of family, from the ties of kindred,
from the claims of country, and from the rule of law, careless of the happiness they
might destroy, and the misery and pain and woe they might inflict, the members were
at liberty, without control or challenge, to pursue their terrible end, which was the
dethronement of every other power, the extinction of every other interest but their
own, and the reduction of mankind into abject slavery, that on the ruins of the liberty,
the virtue, and the happiness of the world they might raise themselves to supreme,
unlimited dominion. But we have not yet detailed all the appliances with which the
192
Jesuits were careful to furnish themselves for the execution of their unspeakably
audacious and diabolical design. In the midst of these abysses there opens to our eye a
yet profounder abyss. To enjoy exemption from all human authority and from every
earthly law was to them a small matter; nothing would satisfy their lust for licence
save the entire abrogation of the moral law, and nothing would appease their pride
save to trample under foot the majesty of heaven. We now come to speak of the moral
code of the Jesuits.
The key-note of their ethical code is the famous maxim that the end sanctifies the
means. Before that maxim the eternal distinction of right and wrong vanishes. Not
only do the stringency and sanctions of human law dissolve and disappear, but the
authority and majesty of the Decalogue are overthrown. There are no conceivable
crime, villainy, and atrocity which this maxim will not justify. Nay, such become
dutiful and holy, provided they be done for “the greater glory of God,” by which the
Jesuit means the honour, interest, and advancement of His society. In short, the Jesuit
may do whatever he has a mind to do, all human and Divine laws notwithstanding.
This is a very grave charge, but the evidence of its truth is, unhappily, too abundant,
and the difficulty lies in making a selection. What the Popes have attempted to do by
the plenitude of their power, namely, to make sin to be no sin, the Jesuit doctors have
done by their casuistry. “The first and great commandment in the law,” said the same
Divine Person who proclaimed it from Sinai, “is to love the Lord thy God.” The Jesuit
casuists have set men free from the obligation to love God. Escobar [1] collects the
different sentiments of the famous divines of the Society of Jesus upon the question,
When is a man obliged to have actually an affection for God? The following are some
of these: - Suarez says, “It is sufficient a man love him before he dies, not assigning
any particular time. Vasquez, that it is sufficient even at the point of death.
Others, when a man receives his baptism: others, when he is obliged to be contrite:
others, upon holidays. But our Father Castro-Palao [2] disputes all these opinions, and
that justly. Hurtado de Mendoza pretends that a man is obliged to do it once every
year. Our Father Coninck believes a man to be obliged once in three or four years.
Henriquez, once in five years. But Filiutius affirms it to be probable that in rigor a
man is not obliged every five years. When then? He leaves the point to the wise.”
“We are not,” says Father Sirmond, “so much commanded to love him as not to hate
him,”[3] Thus do the Jesuit theologians make void “the first; and great commandment
in the law.”
The second commandment in the law is, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
This second great commandment meets with no more respect at the hands of the
Jesuits than the first. Their morality dashes both tables of the law in pieces; charity to
man it makes void equally with the love of God. The methods by which this may be
done are innumerable.[4]
The first of these is termed probabilism. This is a device which enables a man to
commit any act, be it ever so manifest a breach of the moral and Divine law, without
the least restraint of conscience, remorse of mind, or guilt before God. What is
probabilism? By way of answer we shall suppose that a man has a great mind to do a
certain act, of the lawfulness of which he is in doubt. He finds that there are two
opinions upon the point: the one probably true, to the effect that the act is lawful; the
other more probably true, to the effect that the act is sinful. Under the Jesuit regimen
the man is at liberty to act upon the probable opinion. The act is probably right, but
193
more probably wrong, nevertheless he is safe in doing it, in virtue of the doctrine of
probabilism. It is important to ask, what makes all opinion probable? To make an
opinion probable a Jesuit finds easy indeed. If a single doctor has pronounced in its
favour, though a score of doctors may have condemned it, or if the man can imagine
in his own mind something like a tolerable reason for doing the act, the opinion that it
is lawful becomes probable. It will be hard to name an act for which a Jesuit authority
may not be produced, and harder still to find a man whose invention is so poor as not
to furnish him with what he deems a good reason for doing what he is inclined to, and
therefore it may be pronounced impossible to instance a deed, however manifestly
opposed to the light of nature and the law of God, which may not be committed under
the shield of the monstrous dogma of probabilism.[5]
We are neither indulging in satire nor incurring the charge of false-witness-bearing in
this picture of Jesuit theology. “A person may do what he considers allowable,” says
Emmanuel Sa, of the Society of Jesus, “according to a probable opinion, although the
contrary may be the more probable one. The opinion of a single grave doctor is all
that is requisite.”
A yet greater doctor, Filiutius, of Rome, confirms him in this. “It is allowable,” says
he, “to follow the less probable opinion, even though it be the less safe one. That is
the common judgment of modern authors.” “Of two contrary opinions,” says Paul
Laymann, “touching the legality or illegality of any human action, every one may
follow in practice or in action that which he should prefer, although it may appear to
the agent himself less probable in theory.” he adds: “A learned person may give
contrary advice to different persons according to contrary probable opinions, whilst he
still preserves discretion and prudence.” We may say with Pascal, “These Jesuit
casuists give us elbow-room at all events!”[6]
It is and it is not is the motto of this theology. It is the true Lesbian rule which shapes
itself according to that which we wish to measure by it. Would we have any action to
be sinful, the Jesuit moralist turns this side of the code to us; would we have it to be
lawful, he turns the other side. Right and wrong are put thus in our own power; we
can make the same action a sin or a duty as we please, or as we deem it expedient. To
steal the property, slander the character, violate the chastity, or spill the blood of a
fellow-creature, is most probably wrong, but let us imagine some good to be got by it,
and it is probably right. The Jesuit workers, for the sake of those who are dull of
understanding and slow to apprehend the freedom they bring them, have gone into
particulars and compiled lists of actions, esteemed sinful, unnatural, and abominable
by the moral sense of all nations hitherto, but which, in virtue of this new morality,
are no longer so, and they have explained how these actions may be safely done, with
a minuteness of detail and a luxuriance of illustration, in which it were tedious in
some cases, immodest in others, to follow them.
One would think that this was licence enough. What more can the Jesuit need, or what
more can he possibly have, seeing by a little effort, of invention he can overleap every
human and Divine barrier, and commit the most horrible crimes, on the mightiest
possible scale, and neither feel remorse of conscience nor fear of punishment? But
this unbounded liberty of wickedness did not content the sons of Loyola. They panted
for a liberty, if possible, yet more boundless; they wished to be released from the easy
condition of imagining some good end for the wickedness they wished to perpetrate,
194
and to be free to sin without the trouble of assigning even to themselves any end at all.
This they have accomplished by the method of directing the intention.
This is a new ethical science, unknown to those ages which were not privileged to
bask in the illuminating rays of the Society of Jesus, and it is as simple as convenient.
It is the soul, they argue, that does the act, so far as it is moral or immoral. As regards
the body’s share in it, neither virtue nor vice can be predicated of it. If, therefore,
while the hand is shedding blood, or the tongue is calumniating character, or uttering
a falsehood, the soul can so abstract itself from what the body is doing as to occupy
itself the while with some holy theme, or fix its meditation upon some benefit or
advantage likely to arise from the deed, which it knows, or at least suspects, the body
is at that moment engaged in doing, the soul contracts neither guilt nor stain, and the
man runs no risk of ever being called to account for the murder, or theft, or calumny,
by God, or of incurring his displeasure on that ground. We are not satirising; we are
simply stating the morality of the Jesuits. “We never,” says the Father Jesuit in
Pascal’s Letters, “suffer such a thing as the formal intention to sin with the sole design
of sinning; and if any person whatever should persist in having no other end but evil
in the evil that he does, we break with him at once - such conduct is diabolical. This
holds true, without exception, of age, sex, or rank. But when the person is not of such
a wretched disposition as this, we try to put in practice our method of directing the
intention, which simply consists in his proposing to himself, as the end of his actions,
some allowable object. Not that we do not endeavour, as far as we can, to dissuade
men from doing things forbidden; but when we can not prevent the action, we at least,
purify the motive, and thus correct the viciousness of the means by the goodness of
the end. Such is the way in which our Fathers [of the society] have contrived to permit
those acts of violence to which men usually resort in vindication of their honour. They
have no more to do than to turn off the intention from the desire of vengeance, which
is criminal, and to direct it to a desire to defend their honour, which, according to us,
is quite warrantable. And in this way our doctors discharge all their duty towards God
and towards man. By permitting the action they gratify the world; and by purifying
the intention they give satisfaction to the Gospel. This is a secret, sir, which was
entirely unknown to the ancients; the world is indebted for the discovery entirely to
our doctors. You understand it now, I hope.[7]
Let us take a few illustrative cases, but only such as Jesuit casuists themselves have
furnished. “A military man,” says Reginald,”[8] “may demand satisfaction on the spot
from the person who has injured him, not indeed with the intention of rendering evil
for evil, but with that of preserving his honour. Lessius [9] observes that if a man has
received a blow on the face, he must on no account have an intention to avenge
himself; but he may lawfully have an intention to avert infamy, and may, with that
view, repel the insult immediately, even at the point of the sword. “If your enemy is
disposed to injure you,” says Escobar, “you have no right to wish his death by a
movement of hatred, though you may to save yourself from harm.” And says Hurtado
de Mendoza [10] “We may pray God to visit with speedy death those who are bent on
persecuting us, if there is no other way of escaping from it.” “An incumbent,” says
Gaspar de Hurtado [11] “may without any mortal sin desire the decease of a liferenter on his benefice, and a son that of a father, and rejoice when it happens,
provided always it is for the sake of the profit that is to accrue from the event, and not
from personal aversion.” Sanchez teaches that it is lawful to kill our adversary in a
duel, or even privately, when he intends to deprive us of our honour or property
195
unjustly in a law-suit, or by chicanery, and when there is no other way of preserving
them.[12] It is equally right to kill in a private way a false accuser, and his witness,
and even the judge who has been bribed to favour them. “A most pious
assassination!” exclaims Pascal.
196
CHAPTER 5
THE JESUIT TEACHING ON REGICIDE,
MURDER, LYING, THEFT, ETC.
The three great rules of the code of the Jesuits, which we have stated in the foregoing
chapter - namely,
1. That the end justifies the means;
2. That it is safe to do any action if it be probably right, although it may be more
probably wrong; and
3. That if one know to direct the intention aright, there is no deed, be its moral
character what it may, which one may not do - may seem to give a licence of acting so
immense that to add thereto were an altogether superfluous, and indeed an impossible
task.
But if the liberty with which these three maxims endow the Jesuit can not be made
larger, its particular applications may nevertheless be made more pointed, and the
man who holds back from using it in all its extent may be emboldened, despite his
remaining scruples, or the dullness of his intellectual perceptions, to avail himself to
the utmost of the advantages it offers, “for the greater glory of God.” He is to be
taught, not merely by general rules, but by specific examples, how he may sin and yet
not become sinful; how he may break the law and yet not suffer the penalty.
But, further, these sons of Loyola are the kings of the world, and the sole heirs of all
its wealth, honours, and pleasures; and whatever law, custom, sacred and venerable
office, august and kingly authority, may stand between them and their rightful
lordship over mankind, they are at liberty to throw down and tread into the dust as a
vile and accursed thing. The moral maxims of the Jesuits are to be put in force against
kings as well as against peasants.
The lawfulness of killing excommunicated, that is Protestant, kings, the Jesuit writers
have been at great pains to maintain, and by a great variety of arguments to defend
and enforce. The proof is as abundant as it is painful. M. de la Chalotais reports to the
Parliament of Bretagne, as the result of his examination of the laws and doctrines of
the Jesuits, that on this point there is a complete and startling unanimity in their
teaching. By the same logical track do the whole host of Jesuit writers arrive at the
same terrible conclusion, the slaughter, namely, of the sovereign on whom the Pope
has pronounced sentence of deposition. If he shall take meekly his extrusion from
Power, and seek neither to resist nor revenge his being hurled from his throne, his life
may be spared; but should “he persist in disobedience,” says M. de la Chalotais,
himself a Papist, and addressing a Popish Parliament, “he may be treated as a tyrant,
in which case anybody may kill him.[1] Such is the course of reasoning established by
all authors of the society, who have written ex professo on these subjects Bellarmine, Suarez, Molina, Mariana, Santarel - all the Ultramontanes without
exception, since the establishment of the society.”[2]
But have not the writers of this school expressed in no measured terms their
abhorrence of murder? Have they not loudly exclaimed against the sacrilege of
197
touching him on whom the Church’s anointing oil has been poured as king? In short,
do they not forbid and condemn the crime of regicide? Yes: this is true; but they
protest with a warmth that is fitted to awaken suspicion. Rome can take back her
anointing, and when she has stripped the monarch of his office he becomes the lawful
victim of her consecrated dagger. On what grounds, the Jesuits demand, can the
killing of one who is no longer a king be called regicide? Suarez tells us that when a
king is deposed he is no longer to be regarded as a king, but as a tyrant: “he therefore
loses his authority, and from that moment may be lawfully killed.” Nor is the opinion
of the Jesuit Mariana less decided. Speaking of a prince, he says: “If he should
overthrow the religion of the country, and introduce a public enemy within the State, I
shall never consider that man to have done wrong, who, favouring the public wishes,
would attempt to kill him … It is useful that princes should be made to know, that if
they oppress the State and become intolerable by their vices and their pollution, they
hold their lives upon this tenure, that to put them to death is not only laudable, but a
glorious action … It is a glorious thing to exterminate this pestilent and mischievous
race from the community of men.”[3]
Wherever the Jesuits have planted missions, opened seminaries, and established
colleges, they have been careful to inculcate these principles in the minds of the
youth; thus sowing the seeds of future tumults, revolutions, regicides, and wars. These
evil fruits have appeared sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but they have never
failed to show themselves, to the grief of nations and the dismay of kings. John
Chatel, who attempted the life of Henry IV., had studied in the College of Clermont,
in which the Jesuit Guignard was Professor of Divinity. In the chamber of the wouldbe regicide, a manuscript of Guignard was found, in which, besides other dangerous
articles, that Father approved not only of the assassination of Henry III. by Clement,
but also maintained that the same thing ought to be attempted against le Bearnois, as
he called Henry IV., which occasioned the first banishment of the order out of France,
as a society detestable and diabolical. The sentence of the Parliament, passed in 1594,
ordained “that all the priests and scholars of the College of Clermont, and others
calling themselves the Society of Jesus, as being corrupters of youth, disturbers of the
public peace, and enemies of the king and State, should depart in three days from their
house and college, and in fifteen days out of the whole kingdom.”
But why should we dwell on these written proofs of the disloyal and murderous
principles of the Jesuits, when their acted deeds bear still more emphatic testimony to
the true nature and effects of their principles? We have only to look around, and on
every hand the melancholy monuments of these doctrines meet our afflicted sight. To
what country of Europe shall we turn where we are not able to track the Jesuit by his
bloody foot-prints? What page of modern history shall we open and not read fresh
proofs that the Papal doctrine of killing excommunicated kings was not meant to
slumber in forgotten tomes, but to be acted out in the living world? We see Henry III.
falling by their dagger. Henry IV. perishes by the same consecrated weapon. The
King of Portugal dies by their order.
The great Prince of Orange is dispatched by their agent, shot down at the door of his
own dining-room. How many assassins they sent to England to murder Elizabeth,
history attests. That she escaped their machinations is one of the marvels of history.
Nor is it only the palaces of monarchs into which they have crept with their doctrines
of murder and assassination; the very sanctuary of their own Popes they have defiled
198
with blood. We behold Clement XIV. signing the order for the banishment of the
Jesuits, and soon thereafter he is overtaken by their vengeance, and dies by poison. In
the Gunpowder Plot we see them deliberately planning to destroy at one blow the
nobility and gentry of England. To them we owe those civil wars which for so many
years drenched with blood the fair provinces of France. They laid the train of that
crowning horror, the St. Bartholomew massacre. Philip II. and the Jesuits share
between them the guilt of the “Invincible Armada,” which, instead of inflicting the
measureless ruin and havoc which its authors intended, by a most merciful Providence
became the means of exhausting the treasures and overthrowing the prestige of Spain.
What a harvest of plots, tumults, seditions, revolutions, torturings, poisonings,
assassinations, regicides, and massacres has Christendom reaped from the seed sown
by the Jesuits! Nor can we be sure that we have yet seen the last and greatest of their
crimes.
We can bestow only the most cursory glance at the teaching of the Jesuits under the
other heads of moral duty. Let us take their doctrine of mental reservation. Nothing
can be imagined more heinous and, at the same time, more dangerous. “The doctrine
of equivocation,” says Blackwell, “is for the consolation of afflicted Roman Catholics
and the instruction of all the godly.” It has been of special use to them when residing
among infidels and heretics. In heathen countries, as China and Malabar, they have
professed conformity to the rites and the worship of paganism, while remaining
Roman Catholics at heart, and they have taught their converts to venerate their former
deities in appearance, on the strength of directing aright the intention, and the pious
fraud of concealing a crucifix under their clothes.
Equivocation they have carried into civil life as well as into religion. “A man may
swear,” says Sanchez, “that he hath not done a thing though he really have, by
understanding within himself that he did it not on such and such a day, or before he
was born; or by reflecting on some other circumstance of the like nature; and yet the
words he shall make use of shall not have a sense implying any such thing; and this is
a thing of great convenience on many occasions, and is always justifiable when it is
necessary or advantageous in anything that concerns a man’s health, honour, or
estate.”[4] Filiutius, in his Moral Questions, asks, “Is it wrong to use equivocation in
swearing? I answer, first, that it is not in itself a sin to use equivocation in swearing
This is the common doctrine after Suarez.” Is it perjury or sin to equivocate in a just
cause?” he further asks. “It is not perjury,” he answers. “As, for example, in the case
of a man who has outwardly made a promise without the intention of promising; if he
is asked whether he has promised, he may deny it, meaning that he has not promised
with a binding promise; and thus he may swear.”
Filiutius asks yet again, “With what precaution is equivocation to be used? When we
begin, for instance, to say, I swear, we must insert in a subdued tone the mental
restriction, that today, and then continue aloud, I have not eaten such a thing; or, I
swear - then insert, I say - then conclude in the same loud voice, that I have not done
this or that thing; for thus the whole speech is most true.[5] What an admirable lesson
in the art of speaking the truth to one’s self, and lying and swearing falsely to
everybody else![6]
We shall offer no comment on the teaching of the Jesuits under the head of the
seventh commandment. The doctrines of the society which relate to chastity are
screened from exposure by the very enormity of their turpitude. We pass them as we
199
would the open grave, whose putrid breath kills all who inhale it. Let all who value
the sweetness of a pure imagination, and the joy of a conscience undefiled, shun the
confessional as they would the chamber in which the plague is shut up, or the path in
which lurks the deadly scorpion. The teaching of the Jesuits - everywhere deadly - is
here a poison that consumes flesh, and bones, and soul.
Which precept of the Decalogue is it that the theology of the Jesuits does not set
aside? We are commanded “to fear the great and dreadful name of the Lord our God.”
The Jesuit Bauny teaches us to blaspheme it. “If one has been hurried by passion into
cursing and doing despite to his Maker, it may be determined that he has only sinned
venially.” [7] This is much, but Casnedi goes a little farther. “Do what your
conscience tells you to be good, and commanded,” says this Jesuit; “if through
invincible error you believe lying or blasphemy to be commanded by God,
blaspheme.” [8] The license given by the Jesuits to regicide we have already seen; not
less ample is the provision their theology makes for the perpetration of ordinary
homicides and murders. Reginald says it is lawful to kill a false witness, seeing
otherwise one should be killed by him.[9] Parents who seek to turn their children from
the faith, says Fagundez, “may justly be killed by them.” [10] The Jesuit Amicus
teaches that it is lawful for an ecclesiastic, or one in a religious order, to kill a
calumniator when other means of defence are wanting.[11] And Airult extends the
same privilege to laymen. If one brings an impeachment before a prince or judge
against another, and if that other can not by any means avert the injury to his
character, he may kill him secretly. He fortifies his opinion by the authority of
Bannez, who gives the same latitude to the right of defence, with this slight
qualification, that the calumniator should first be warned that he desist from his
slander, and if he will not, he should be killed, not openly, on account of the scandal,
but secretly. [12]
Of a like ample kind is the liberty which the Jesuits permit to be taken with the
property of one’s neighbour. Dishonesty in all its forms they sanction. They
encourage cheats, frauds, purloinings, robberies, by furnishing men with a ready
justification of these misdeeds, and especially by persuading their votaries that if they
will only take the trouble of doing them in the way of directing the intention
according to their instructions, they need not fear being called to a reckoning for them
hereafter. The Jesuit Emmanuel Sa teaches “that it is not a mortal sin to take secretly
from him who would give if he were asked;” that “it is not theft to take a small thing
from a husband or a father;” that if one has taken what he doubts to have been his
own, that doubt makes it probable that it is safe to keep it; that if one, from an urgent
necessity, or without causing much loss, takes wood from another man’s pile, he is
not obliged to restore it. One who has stolen small things at different times, is not
obliged to make restitution till such time as they amount together to a considerable
sum. But should the purloiner feel restitution burdensome, it may comfort him to
know that some Fathers deny it with probability.[13]
The case of merchants, whose gains may not be increasing so fast as they could wish,
has been kindly considered by the Fathers. Francis Tolet says that if a man can not
sell his wine at a fair price - that is, at a fair profit - he may mix a little water with his
wine, or diminish his measure, and sell it for pure wine of full measure. Of course, if
it be lawful to mix wine, it is lawful to adulterate all other articles of merchandise, or
to diminish the weight, and go on vending as if the balance were just and the article
200
genuine. Only the trafficker in spurious goods, with false balances, must be careful
not to tell a lie; or if he should be compelled to equivocate, he must do it in
accordance with the rules laid down by the Fathers for enabling one to say what is not
true without committing falsehood.[14]
Domestic servants also have been taken by the Fathers under the shield of their
casuistry. Should a servant deem his wages not enough, or the food, clothing, and
other necessaries provided for him not equal to that which is provided for servants of
similar rank in other houses, he may recompense himself by abstracting from his
master’s property as much as shall make his wages commensurate with his services.
So has Valerius Reginald decided.[15]
It is fair, however, that the pupil be cautioned that this lesson can not safely be put in
practice against his teacher. The story of John d’Alba, related by Pascal, shows that
the Fathers do not relish these doctrines in praxi nearly so well as in thesi, when they
themselves are the sufferers by them. D’Alba was a servant to the Fathers in the
College of Clermont, in the Rue St. Jacques, and thinking that his wages were not
equal to his merits, he stole somewhat from his masters to. make up the discrepancy,
never dreaming that they would make a criminal of him for following their approved
rules. However, they threw him into prison on a charge of larceny. He was brought to
trial on the 16th April, 1647. He confessed before the court to having taken some
pewter plates, but maintained that the act was not to be regarded as a theft, on the
strength of this same doctrine of Father Bauny, which he produced before the judges,
with attestation from another of the Fathers, under whom he had studied these cases
of conscience. Whereupon the judge, M. de Montrouge, gave sentence as follows: “That the prisoner should not be acquitted upon the writings of these Fathers,
containing a doctrine so unlawful, pernicious, and contrary to all laws, natural,
Divine, and human, such as might confound all families, and authorize all domestic
frauds and infidelities;” but that the over-faithful disciple “should be whipt before the
College gate of Clermont by the common executioner, who at the same time should
burn all the writings of those Fathers treating of theft; and that they should be
prohibited to teach any such doctrine again under pain of death.”[16]
But we should swell beyond all reasonable limit, our enumeration, were we to quote
even a tithe of the “moral maxims” of the Jesuits. There is not One in the long
catalogue of sins and crimes which their casuistry does not sanction. Pride, ambition,
avarice, luxury, bribery, and a host of vices which we can not specify, and some of
which are too horrible to be mentioned, find in these Fathers their patrons and
defenders. The alchemists of the Middle Ages boasted that their art enabled them to
operate on the essence of things, and to change what was vile into what was noble.
But the still darker art of the Jesuits acts in the reverse order; it changes all that is
noble into all that is vile. Theirs is an accursed alchemy by which they transmute good
into evil, and virtue into vice. There is no destructive agency with which the world is
liable to be visited, that penetrates so deep, or inflicts so remediless a ruin, as the
morality of the Jesuits. The tornado sweeps along over the surface of the globe,
leaving the earth naked and effaced and forgotten in the greater splendour and the
more solid strength of the restored structures. Revolution may overturn thrones,
abolish laws, and break in pieces the framework of society; but when the fury of
faction has spent its rage, order emerges from the chaos, law resumes its supremacy,
and the bare as before tree or shrub beautified it; but the summers of after years re-
201
clothe it with verdure and beautify it with flowers, and make it smile as sweetly as
before. The earthquake overturns the dwelling of man, and swallows up the proudest
of his cities; but his skill and power survive the shock, and when the destroyer has
passed, the architect sets up again the fallen palace, and rebuilds the ruined city, and
the catastrophe is effaced and forgotten in the greater splendour and the more solid
strength of the restored structures. Revolution may overturn thrones, abolish laws, and
break in pieces the framework of society; but when the fury of faction has spent its
rage, order emerges from the chaos, law resumes its supremacy, and the institutions
which had been destroyed in the hour of madness, are restored in the hour of calm
wisdom that succeeds. But the havoc the Jesuit inflicts is irremediable. It has nothing
in it counteractive or restorative; it is only evil. It is not upon the works of man or the
institutions of man merely that, it puts forth its fearfully destructive power; it is upon
man himself. It is not the body of man that it strikes, like the pestilence; it is the soul.
It is not a part, but the whole of man that it consigns to corruption and ruin.
Conscience it destroys, knowledge it extinguishes, the very power of discerning
between right and wrong it takes away, and shuts up the man in a prison whence no
created agency or influence can set him free. The Fall defaced the image of God in
which man was made; we say, defaced; it did not totally obliterate or extinguish it.
Jesuitism, more terrible than the Fall, totally effaces from the soul of man the image
of God. Of the “knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness” in which man was made
it leaves not a tree. It plucks up by its very roots the moral constitution which God
gave man. The full triumph of Jesuitism would leave nothing spiritual, nothing moral,
nothing intellectual, nothing strictly and properly human existing upon the earth.
Man it would change into the animal, impelled by nothing but appetites and passions,
and these more fierce and cruel than those of the tiger. Society would become simply
a herd of wolves, lawless, ravenous, greedy of each other’s blood, and perpetually in
quest of prey. Even Jesuitism itself would perish, devoured by its own progeny. Our
earth at last would be simply a vast sepulchre, moving round the sun in its annual
circuit, its bosom as joyless, dreary, and waste as are those silent spaces through
which it rolls.
202
CHAPTER 6
THE “SECRET INSTRUCTIONS” OF THE JESUITS
So far we have traced the enrolment and training of that mighty army which Loyola
had called into existence for the conquest of Protestantism. Their leader, who was
quite as much the shrewd calculator as the fiery fanatic, took care before sending his
soldiers into the field to provide them with armour, every way fitted for the
combatants they were to meet, and the campaign they were to wage. The war in which
they were to be occupied was one against right and truth, against knowledge and
liberty, and where could weapons be found for the successful prosecution of a conflict
like this, save in the old-established arsenal of sophisms The schoolmen, those
Vulcans of the Middle Ages, had forged these weapons with the hammers of their
speculation on the anvil of their subtlety, and having made them sharp of edge, and
given them an incomparable flexibility, they stored them up, and kept them in reserve
against the great coming day of battle. To this armoury Loyola, and the chiefs that
succeeded him in command, had recourse. But not content with these weapons as the
schoolmen had left them, the Jesuit doctors put them back again into the fire; they
kept them in a furnace, heated seven times, till every particle of the dross of right and
truth that cleaved to them had been merged out, and they had acquired a flexibility
absolutely and altogether perfect, and a keenness of edge unattained before, and were
now deemed every way fit for the hands that were to wield them, and every way
worthy of the cause in which they were to be drawn. So attempered, they could cut
through shield and helmet, through body and soul of the foe.
Let us survey the soldier of Loyola, as he stands in the complete and perfect panoply
his General has provided him with. How admirably harnessed for the battle he is to
fight! He has his “loins girt about with” mental and verbal equivocation; he has “on
the breast-plate of” probabilism; his “feet are shod with the preparation of the” Secret
Instruction. “Above all, taking the shield of” intention, and rightly handling it, he is
“able to quench all the fiery darts of” human remorse and Divine threatenings. He
takes “for an helmet the hope of” Paradise, which has been most surely promised him
as the reward of his services; and in his hand he grasps the two-edged sword of a fiery
fanaticism, wherewith he is able to cut his way, with prodigious bravery, through truth
and righteousness.[1] Verily, the man who has to sustain the onset of soldiers like
these, and parry the thrusts of their weapons, had need to be mindful of the ancient
admonition, “Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to
withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”
Shrewd, practical, and precise are the instructions of the Jesuits. First of all they are
told to select the best points in that great field, all of which they are in due time to
subjugate and possess. That field is Christendom. They are to begin by establishing
convents, or colleges, in the chief cities. The great centres of population and wealth
secured, the smaller places will be easily occupied.
Should any one ask on what errand the good Fathers have come, they are instructed to
make answer that their “sole object is the salvation of souls.” What a pious errand!
Who would not strive to be the first to welcome to their houses, and to seat at their
tables, men whose aims are so unselfish and heavenly? They are to be careful to
maintain a humble and submissive deportment; they are to pay frequent visits to the
hospitals, the sick-chamber, and the prisons. They are to make great show of charity,
203
and as they have nothing of their own to give to the poor, they are “to go far and near”
to receive even the “smallest atoms.” These good deeds will not lose their reward if
only they take care not to do them in secret. Men will begin to speak of them and say,
What a humble, pious, charitable order of men these Fathers of the Society of Jesus
are! How unlike the Franciscans and Dominicans, who were want to care for the sick
and the poor, but have now forgotten the virtues of a former tune, and are grown
proud, indolent, luxurious, and rich! Thus the “new-comers,” the Instructions hint,
will supplant the other and older orders, and will receive “the respect and reverence of
the best and most eminent in the neighbourhood.”[2]
Further, they are enjoined to conduct themselves very deferentially towards the
parochial clergy, and not to perform any sacred function till first they have piously
and submissively asked the bishop’s leave. This will secure their good graces, and
dispose the secular clergy to protect them; but by-and-by, when they have ingratiated
themselves with the people, they may abate somewhat of this subserviency to the
clergy.
The individual Jesuit takes a vow of poverty, but the society takes no such vow, and is
qualified to hold property to any amount. Therefore, while seeking the salvation of
souls, the members are carefully to note the rich men in the community. They must
find out who own the estates in the neighbourhood, and what are their yearly values.
They are to secure these estates by gift, if possible; if not, by purchase. When it
happens that they “get anything that is considerable, let the purchase be made under a
strange name, by some of our friends, that our poverty may still seem the greater.”[3]
And let our provincial “assign such revenues to some other colleges, more remote,
that neither prince nor people may discover anything of our profits”[4] - a device that
combines many advantages. Every day their acres will increase, nevertheless their
apparent poverty will be as great as ever, and the flow of benefactions and legacies to
supply it will remain undiminished, although the sea into which all these rivers run
will never be full.
Among the multifarious duties laid upon the Jesuits, special prominence was given to
the instruction of youth. It was by this arm that they achieved their most brilliant
success. “Whisper it sweetly in their [the people’s] ears, that they are come to
catechise the children gratis.”[5] Wherever the Jesuits came they opened schools, and
gathered the youth around them; but despite their zeal in the work of education,
knowledge somehow did not increase. The intellect refused to expand and the genius
to open under their tutelage. Kingdoms like Poland, where they became the privileged
and only instructors of youth, instead of taking a higher place in the commonwealth of
letters, fell back into mental decrepitude, and lost their rank in the community of
nations. The Jesuits communicated to their pupils little besides a knowledge of Latin.
History, philosophy, and science were sealed books. They initiated their disciples into
the mysteries of probabilism, and the art of directing the intention, and the youth
trained in these paths, when old did not depart from them. They dwarfed the intellect
and narrowed the understanding, but they gained their end. They stamped anew the
Roman impress upon many of the countries of Europe.
The second chapter of the Instructions is entitled “What must be done to get the ear
and intimacy of great men?” To stand well with monarchs and princes is, of course, a
matter of such importance that no stone is to be left unturned to attain it. The
Instructions here, as we should expect them to be, are full and precise. The members
204
of the Society of Jesus are first of all to imbue princes and great men with the belief
that they can not dispense with their aid if they would maintain the pomp of their
State, and the government of their realms. Should princes be filled with a conceit of
their own wisdom, the Fathers must find some way of dispelling this egregious
delusion. They are to surround them with confessors chosen from their society; but by
no means are they to bear hard on the consciences of their royal penitents. They must
treat them “sweetly and pleasantly,” oftener administering opiates than irritants. They
are to study their humours, and if, in the matter of marriage, they should be inclined as often happens with princes - to contract alliance with their own kindred, they are to
smooth their way, by hinting at a dispensation from the Pope, or finding some
palliative for the sin from the pharmacopoeia of their theology. They may tell them
that such marriages, though forbidden to the commonalty, are sometimes allowed to
princes, “for the greater glory of God.”[6] If a monarch is bent on some enterprise - a
war, for example - the issue of which is doubtful, they are to be at pains so to shape
their counsel in the matter, that if the affair succeeds they shall have all the praise, and
if it fails, the blame shall rest with the king alone. And, lastly, when a vacancy occurs
near the throne, they are to take care that the empty post shall be filled by one of the
tried friends of the society, of whom they are enjoined to have, at all times, a list in
their possession. It may be well, in order still more to advance their interests at courts,
to undertake embassies at times.
This will enable them to draw the affairs of Europe into their own hands, and to make
princes feel that they are indispensable to them, by showing them what an influence
they wield at the courts of other sovereigns, and especially how great their power is at
that of Rome. Small services and trifling presents they are by no means to overlook.
Such things go a great way in opening the hearts of princes. Be sure, say the
Instructions, to paint the men whom the prince dislikes in the same colours in which
his jealousy and hatred teach him to view them. Moreover, if the prince is unmarried,
it will be a rare stroke of policy to choose a wife for him from among the beautiful
and noble ladies known to their society. “This is seen,” say the Instructions, “by
experience in the House of Austria: and in the Kingdoms of Poland and France, and in
many other principalities.”[7]
“We must endeavour,” say the Instructions, with remarkable plainness, but in the
belief, doubtless, that the words would meet the faithful eyes of the members of the
Society of Jesus only - “We must endeavour to breed dissension among great men,
and raise seditions, or anything a prince would have us to do to please him. If one
who is chief Minister of State to a monarch who is our friend oppose us, and that
prince cast his whole favours upon him, so as to add titles to his honour, we must
present ourselves before him, and court him in the highest degree, as well by visits as
all humble respect.”[8]
Having specified the arts by which princes may be managed, the Instructions next
prescribe certain methods for turning to account others “of great authority in the
commonwealth, that by their credit we obtain profit and preferment.” “If,” say the
Instructions,[9] “these lords be seculars, we ought to have recourse to their aid and
friendship against our adversaries, and to their favour in our own suits, and those of
our friends, and to their authority and power in the purchase of houses, manors, and
gardens, and of stones to build with, especially in those places that will not endure to
205
hear of our settling in them, because the authority of these lords serveth very much for
the appeasing of the populace, and making our ill-willers quiet.”
Nor are they less sedulously to make court to the bishops. Their authority - great
everywhere - is especially so in some kingdoms, “as in Germany, Poland, and
France;” and, the bishops conciliated, they may expect to obtain a gift of “newerected churches, altars, monasteries, foundations, and in some cases the benefices of
the secular priests and canons, with the preferable right of preaching in all the great
towns.” And when bishops so befriend them, they are to be taught that there is no less
profit than merit in the deed; inasmuch as, done to the Order of Jesus, they are sure to
be repaid with most substantial services; whereas, done to the other orders, they will
have nothing in return for their pains “but a song.”[10]
To love their neighbour, and speak well of him, while they held themselves in lowly
estimation, was not one of the failings of the Jesuits. Their own virtues they were to
proclaim as loudly as they did the faults of their brother monks. Their Instructions
commanded them to “imprint upon the spirits of those princes who love us, that our
order is more perfect than all other orders.” They are to supplant their rivals, by
telling monarchs that no wisdom is competent to counsel in the affairs of State but
“ours,” and that if they wish to make their realms resplendent with knowledge, they
must surrender the schools to Jesuit teachers. They are especially to exhort princes
that they owe it as a duty to God to consult them in the distribution of honours and
emoluments, and in all appointments to places of importance. Further, they are ever to
have a list in their possession of the names of all persons in authority and power
throughout Christendom, in order that they may change or continue them fit their
several posts, as may be expedient. But so covertly must this delicate business be
gone about, that their hand must not be seen in it, nor must it once be suspected that
the change comes from them?
While slowly and steadily climbing up to the control of kings, and the government of
kingdoms, they are to study great modesty of demeanour and simplicity of life. The
pride must be worn in the heart, not on the brow; and the foot must be set down softly
that is to be planted at last on the neck of monarchs. “Let ours that are in the service
of princes,” say the Instructions, “keep but a very little money, and a few movables,
contenting themselves with a little chamber, modestly keeping company with persons
in humble station; and so being in good esteem, they ought prudently to persuade
princes to do nothing without their counsel, whether it be in spiritual or temporal
affairs.”[11]
206
CHAPTER 7
JESUIT MANAGEMENT OF RICH WIDOWS
AND THE HEIRS OF GREAT FAMILIES
The sixth chapter of the Instructions treats “Of the Means to acquire the Friendship of
Rich Widows.” On opening this new chapter, the reflection that forces itself on one is
- how wide the range of objects to which the Society of Jesus is able to devote its
attention! The greatest matters are not beyond its strength, and the smallest are not
beneath its notice! From counselling monarchs, and guiding ministers of State, it turns
with equal adaptability and dexterity to caring for widows. The Instructions on this
head are minute and elaborate to a degree, which shows the importance the society
attaches to the due discharge of what it owes to this class of its clients.
True, some have professed to doubt whether the action of the society in this matter be
wholly and purely disinterested, from the restriction it puts upon the class of persons
taken under its protection. The Instructions do not say “widows,” but “rich widows.”
But all the more on that account do widows need defence against the arts of chicanery
and the wiles of avarice, and how can the Fathers better accord them such than by
taking measures to convey their bodies and their goods alike within the safe walls of a
convent? There the cormorants and vultures of a wicked world can not make them
their prey. But let us mark how they are to proceed. First, a Father of suitable gifts is
to be selected to begin operations. He must not, in point of years, exceed middle age;
he must have a fresh complexion, and a gracious discourse. He is to visit the widow,
to touch feelingly on her position, and the snares and injuries to which it exposes her,
and to hint at the fraternal care that the society of which he is a member delights to
exercise over all in her condition who choose to place themselves under its
guardianship. After a few visits of this sort, the widow will probably appear at one of
the chapels of the society. Should it so happen, the next step is to appoint a confessor
of their body for the widow. Should these delicate steps be well got over, the matter
will begin to be hopeful. It will be the confessor’s duty to see that the wicked idea of
marrying again does not enter her mind, and for this end he is to picture to her the
delightful and fascinating freedom she enjoys in her widowhood, and over against it
he is to place the cares, vexations, and tyrannies which a second matrimony would
probably draw upon her. To second these representations, the confessor is empowered
to promise exemption from purgatory, should the holy estate of widowhood be
persevered in. To maintain this pious frame of mind on the part of the object of these
solicitudes, the Instructions direct that it may be advisable to have an oratory erected
in her house, with an altar, and frequent mass and confession celebrated thereat. The
adorning of the altar, and the accompanying rites, will occupy the time of the widow,
and prevent the thoughts of a husband entering her mind. The matter having been
conducted to this stage, it will be prudent now to change the persons of trust about
her, and to replace them with persons devoted to the society. The number of religious
services must also be increased, especially confession, “so that,” say the Instructions,
“knowing their former accusations, manners, and inclinations, the whole may serve as
a guide to make them obey our wills.”[1]
These steps will have brought the widow very near the door of a convent. A
continuance a little longer in the same cautious and skilful tactics is all that will be
necessary to land her safely within its walls. The confessor must now enlarge on the
quietude and eminent sanctity of the cloister how surely it conducts to Paradise; but
207
should she be unwilling to assume the veil in regular form, she may be induced to
enter some religious order, such as that of Paulina, “so that being caught in the vow of
chastity, all danger of her marrying again may be over.”[2] The great duty of Alms,
that queen of the graces, “without which, it is to be represented to her, she can not
inherit the kingdom of heaven,” is now to be pressed upon her; “which alms,
notwithstanding, she ought not to dispose to every one, if it be not by the advice and
with the consent of her spiritual father.”[3] Under this Direction it is easy to see in
what exchequer the lands, manors, and revenues of widows will ultimately be
garnered.
But the Fathers deemed it inexpedient to leave such an issue the least uncertain, and
accordingly the seventh chapter enters largely into the “Means of keeping in our
hands the Disposition of the Estates of Widows.” To shut out worldly thoughts, and
especially matrimonial ones, the time of such widows must be occupied with their
devotions; they are to be exhorted to curtail their expenditure and abound yet more in
alms “to the Church of Jesus Christ.” A dexterous confessor is to be appointed them.
They are to be frequently visited, and entertained with pleasant discourse. They are to
be persuaded to select a patron, or tutelary saint, say St. Francis or St. Xavier.
Provision is to be made that all they do be known, by placing about them only persons
recommended by the society.
We must be excused for not giving in the words of the Fathers the fourteenth section
of this chapter. That section gives their protégés great license, indeed all license,
“provided they be liberal and well-affected to our society, and that all things be
carried cunningly and without scandal.”
But the one great point to be aimed at is to get them to make an entire surrender of
their estates to the society. This is to reach perfection now, and it may be to attain in
future the yet higher reward of canonisation. But should it so happen, from love of
kindred, or other motives, that they have not endowed the “poor companions of Jesus”
with all their worldly goods, when they come to die, the preferable claims of “the
Church of Jesus Christ” to those of kindred are to be urged upon them, and they are to
be exhorted “to contribute to the finishing of our colleges, which are yet imperfect, for
the greater glory of God, giving us lamps and pyxes, and for the building of other
foundations and houses, which we, the poor servants of the Society of Jesus, do still
want, that all things may be perfected.”[4]
“Let the same be done with princes,” the Instructions go on to say, “and our other
benefactors, who build us any sumptuous pile, or erect any foundation, representing to
them, in the first place, that the benefits they thus do us are consecrated to eternity;
that they shall become thereby perfect models of piety; that we will have thereof a
very particular memory, and that in the next world they shall have their reward. But if
it be objected that Jesus Christ was born in a stable, and had not where to lay his head,
and that we, who are his companions, ought not to enjoy perishing goods, we ought to
imprint strongly on their spirits that in truth, at first, the Church was also in the same
state, but now that by the providence of God she is raised to a monarchy, and that in
those times the Church was nothing but a broken rock, which is now become a great
mountain.”[5]
In the chapter that follows - the eighth, namely - the net is spread still wider. It is
around the feet of “the sons and daughters of devout widows” that its meshes are now
208
drawn. The scheme of machination and seduction unfolded in this chapter differs only
in its minor points from that which we have already had disclosed to us. We pass it
therefore, and go on to the ninth chapter, where we find the scheme still widening,
and wholesale rapacity and extortion, sanctified of course by the end in view, still
more openly avowed and enjoined. The chapter is entitled “Of the Means to Augment
the Revenues of our Colleges,” and these means, in short, are the astute and persistent
deception, circumvention, and robbery of every class. The net is thrown, almost
without disguise, over the whole community, in order that the goods, heritages, and
possessions of all ranks - prince, peasant, widow, and orphan - may be dragged into
the convents of the Jesuits. The world is but a large preserve for the mighty hunters of
the Society of Jesus. “Above and before all other things,” says this Instruction, “we
ought to endeavour our own greatness, by the direction of our superiors, who are the
only judges in this case, and who should labour that the Church of God may be in the
highest degree of splendour, for the greater glory of God.”[6]
In prosecution of this worthy end, the Secret Instructions enjoin the Fathers to visit
frequently at rich and noble houses, and to “inform themselves, prudently and
dexterously, whether they will not leave something to our Churches, in order to the
obtaining remission of their sins, and of the sins of their kindred.”[7] Confessors - and
only able and eloquent; men are to be appointed as confessors to princes and
statesmen - are to ascertain the name and surname of their penitents, the names of
their kindred and friends, whether they have hopes of succeeding to anything, and
how they mean to dispose of what they already have, or may yet have; whether they
have brothers, sisters, or heirs, and of what age, inclination, and education they are.
And they “should persuade them that all these questions do tend much to the clearing
of the state of their conscience.”[8]
There is a refreshing plainness about the following Instructions. They are given with
the air of men who had so often repeated their plea “for the greater glory of God,” that
they themselves had come at last to believe it: “Our provincial ought to send expert men into all those places where there is any
considerable number of rich and wealthy persons, to the end they may give their
superiors a true and faithful account.”
“Let the stewards of our college get an exact knowledge of the houses, gardens,
quarries of stone, vineyards, manors, and other riches of every one who lives near the
place where they reside, and if it be possible, what degree of affection they have for
us.”
“In the next place we should discover every man’s office, and the revenue of it, their
possessions, and the articles of their contracts, which they may surely do by
confessions, by meetings, and by entertainments, or by our trusty friends. And
generally when any confessor lights upon a wealthy person, from whom he hath good
hopes of profit, he is obliged forthwith to give notice of it, and discover it at his
return.”
“They should also inform themselves exactly whether there be any hope of obtaining
bargains, goods, possessions,[9] pious gifts, and the like, in exchange for the
admission of their sons into our society.”[10]
209
“If a wealthy family have daughters only, they are to be drawn by caresses to become
nuns, fit which case a small portion of their estate may be assigned for their use, and
the rest will be ours.” “The last heir of a family is by all means to be induced to enter
the society. And the better to relieve his mind from all fear of his parents, he is to be
taught that it is more pleasing to God that he take this step without their knowledge or
consent.[11] “Such a one,” the Instructions add, “ought to be sent to a distance to pass
his novitiate.”
These directions were but too faithfully carried out in Spain, and to this among other
causes is owing the depopulation of that once-powerful country. A writer who resided
many years in the Peninsula, and had the best opportunities of observing its condition,
says: “If a gentleman has two or three sons and as many daughters, the confessor of
the family adviseth the father to keep the eldest son at home, and send the rest, both
sons and daughters, into a convent or monastery; praising the monastic life, and
saying that to be retired from the world is the safest way to heaven.
The fathers of these families, glad of lessening the expenses of the house, and of
seeing their children provided for, do send them into the desert place of a convent,
which is really the middle of the world. Now observe that it is twenty to one that their
heir dieth before he marrieth and have children, so the estate and everything else falls
to the second, who is a professed friar, or nun, and as they can not use the expression
of meum or tuum, all goes that way to the society. And this is the reason why many
families are extinguished, and their names quite out of memory, the convent so
crowded, the kingdom so thin of people, and the friars, nuns, and monasteries so
rich.”[12]
Further, the Fathers are counselled to raise large sums of money on bond. The
advantage of this method is, that when the bond-holder comes to die, it will be easy to
induce him to part with the bond in exchange for the salvation of his soul. At all
events, he is more likely to make a gift of the deed than to bequeath the same amount
in gold. Another advantage of borrowing in this fashion, is that their pretence of
poverty may still be kept up. Owners of a fourth or of a half of the property of a
county, they will still be “the poor companions of Jesus.”[13]
We make but one other quotation from the Secret Instructions. It closes this series of
pious advices and is, in one respect, the most characteristic of them all. “Let the
superior keep these secret advices with great care, and let them not be communicated
but to a very few discreet persons, and that only by parts; and let them instruct others
with them, when they have profitably served the society. And then let them not
communicate them as rules they have received, but as the effects of their own
prudence. But if they should happen to fall into the hands of strangers, who should
give them an ill sense or construction, let them be assured the society owns them not
in that sense, which shall be confirmed by instancing those of our order who assuredly
know them not.”[14]
It was some time before the contingency of exposure here provided against actually
happened. But in the beginning of the seventeenth century the accidents of war
dragged these Secret Instructions from the darkness in which their authors had hoped
to conceal them from the knowledge of the world. The Duke of Brunswick, having
plundered the Jesuits’ college at Paderborn in Westphalia, made a present of their
library to the Capuchins of the same town. Among the books which had thus come
210
into their possession was found a copy of the Secret Instructions. Another copy is said
to have been discovered in the Jesuits’ college at Prague. Soon thereafter reprints and
translations appeared in Germany, Holland, France, and England. The authenticity of
the work was denied, as was to be expected; for any society that was astute enough to
compile such a book would be astute enough to deny it. To only the fourth or highest
order of Jesuits were these Instructions to be communicated; the others, who were
ignorant of them in their written form, were brought forward to deny on oath that such
a book existed, but their protestations weighed very little against the overwhelming
evidence on the other side. The perfect uniformity of the methods followed by the
Jesuits in all countries favoured a presumption that they acted upon a prescribed rule;
and the exact correspondence between their methods and the secret advices showed
that this was the rule. Gretza, a well-known member of the society, affirmed that the
Secreta Monita was a forgery by a Jesuit who had been dismissed with ignominy from
the society in Poland, and that he published it in 1616. But the falsehood of the story
was proved by the discovery in the British Museum of a work printed in 1596, twenty
years before the alleged forgery, in which the Secreta Monita is copied.[15]
Since the first discovery in Paderborn, copies of the Secreta Monita have been found
in other libraries, as in Prague, noted above. Numerous editions have since been
published, and in so many languages, that the idea of collusion is out of the question.
These editions all agree with the exception of a few unimportant variations in the
reading.[16] “These private directions,” says M. l’Estrange, “are quite contrary to the
rules, constitutions, and instructions which this society professeth publicly in those
books it hath printed on this subject. So that without difficulty we may believe that the
greatest part of their governors (if a very few be excepted especially) have a double
rule as well as a double habit - one for their private and particular use, and another to
flaunt with before the world.”[17]
211
CHAPTER 8
DIFFUSION OF THE JESUITS
THROUGHOUT CHRISTENDOM
The soldiers of Loyola are about to go forth. Before beginning the campaign we see
their chief assembling them and pointing out the field on which their prowess is to be
displayed. The nations of Christendom are in revolt: it will be theirs to subjugate
them, and lay them once more, bound in chains, at the feet of the Papal See. They
must not faint; the arms he has provided them with are amply sufficient for the
arduous warfare on which he sends them. Clad in that armour, and wielding it in the
way he has shown them, they will expel knowledge as night chases away the day.
Liberty will die wherever their foot shall tread. And in the ancient darkness they will
be able to rear again the fallen throne of the great Hierarch of Rome. But if the service
is hard, the wages will be ample. As the saviours of that throne they will be greater
than it. And though meanwhile their work is to be done in great show of humility and
poverty, the silver and the gold of Christendom will in the end be theirs; they will be
the lords of its lands and palaces, the masters of the bodies and the souls of its
inhabitants, and nothing of all that the heart can desire will be withheld from them if
only they will obey him.
The Jesuits rapidly multiplied, and we are now to follow them in their peregrinations
over Europe. Going forth in little bands, animated with an entire devotion to their
General, schooled in all the arts which could help to further their mission, they
planted themselves in a few years in all the countries of Christendom, and made their
presence felt in the turning of the tide of Protestantism, which till then had been on
the flow.
There was no disguise they could not assume, and therefore there was no place into
which they could not penetrate. They could enter unheard the closet of the monarch,
or the cabinet of the statesman. They could sit unseen in Convocation or General
Assembly, and mingle unsuspected in the deliberations and debates. There was no
tongue they could not speak, and no creed they could not profess, and thus there was
no people among whom they might not sojourn, and no Church whose membership
they might not enter, and whose functions they might not discharge. They could
execrate the Pope with the Lutheran, and swear the Solemn League with the
Covenanter. They had their men of learning and eloquence for the halls of nobles and
the courts of kings; their men of science and letters for the education of youth; their
unpolished but ready orators to harangue the crowd; and their plain, unlettered monks,
to visit the cottages of the peasantry and the workshops of the artisan. “I know these
men,” said Joseph II of Austria, writing to Choiseul, the Prime Minister of Louis XV “I know these men as well as any one can do: all the schemes they have carried on,
and the pains they have taken to spread darkness over the earth, as well as their efforts
to rule and embroil Europe from Cape Finisterre to Spitzbergen! In China they were
mandarins; in France, academicians, courtiers, and confessors; in Spain and Portugal,
grandees; and in Paraguay, kings. Had not my grand-uncle, Joseph I, become
emperor, we had in all probability seen in Germany, too, a Malagrida or an Alvieros.”
In order that they might be at liberty to visit what city and diocese they pleased, they
were exempted from episcopal jurisdiction. They could come and go at their pleasure,
and perform all their functions without having to render account to any one save to
212
their superior. This arrangement was resisted at first by certain prelates; but it was
universally conceded at last, and it greatly facilitated the wide and rapid diffusion of
the Jesuit corps.
Extraordinary success attended their first efforts throughout all Italy. Designed for the
common people, the order found equal acceptance from princes and nobles. In Parma
the highest families submitted themselves to the “Spiritual Exercises.” In Venice,
Lainez expounded the Gospel of St. John to a congregation of nobles; and in 1542 a
Jesuits’ college was founded in that city. The citizens of Montepulciano accompanied
Francisco Strada through the streets begging. Their chief knocked at the doors, and
his followers received the alms. In Faenza, they succeeded in arresting the Protestant
movement, which had been commenced by the eloquent Bernardino Ochino, and by
the machinery of schools and societies for the relief of the poor, they brought back the
population to the Papacy. These are but a few instances out of many of their
popularity and success.[1]
In the countries of Spain and Portugal their success was even greater than in Italy. A
son of the soil, its founder had breathed a spirit into the order which spread among the
Spaniards like an infection. Some of the highest grandees enrolled themselves in its
ranks. In the province of Valencia, the multitudes that flocked to hear the Jesuit
preacher, Araoz, were such that no cathedral could contain them, and a pulpit was
erected for him in the open air. From the city of Salamanca, where in 1548 they had
opened their establishment in a small, wretched house, the Jesuits spread themselves
over all Spain. Two members of the society were sent to the King of Portugal, at his
own request: the one he retained as his confessor, the other he dispatched to the East
Indies. This was that Francis Xavier who there gained for himself, says Ranke, “the
name of an apostle, and the glory of a saint.” At the courts of Madrid and Lisbon they
soon acquired immense influence. They were the confessors of the nobles and the
counsellors of the monarch.
The Jesuits found it more difficult to force their way into France. Much they wished
to found a college in that city where their first vow had been recorded, but every
attempt was met by the determined opposition of the Parliament and the clergy, who
were jealous of their enormous privileges.
The wars between the Guises and the Huguenots at length opened a door for them.
Lainez, who by this time had become their General, saw his opportunity, and in 1561
succeeded in effecting his object, although on condition of renouncing the peculiar
privileges of the order, and submitting to episcopal jurisdiction. “The promise was
made, but with a mental reservation, which removed the necessity of keeping it.”[2]
They immediately founded a college in Paris, opened schools - which were taught by
clever teachers - and planted Jesuit seminaries at Avignon, Rhodes, Lyons, and other
places. Their intrigues kept the nation divided, and much inflamed the fury of the civil
wars. Henry III was massacred by an agent of theirs: they next attempted the life of
Henry IV. This crime led to their first banishment from France, in 1594; but soon they
crept back into the kingdom in the guise of traders and operatives. They were at last
openly admitted by the monarch - a service which they repaid by slaughtering him in
the streets of his capital. Under their rule France continued to bleed and agonize, to
plunge from woe into crime, and from crime into woe, till the crowning wickedness of
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes laid the country prostrate; and it lay quiet for
213
more than half a century, till, recovering somewhat from its exhaustion, it lifted itself
up, only to encounter the terrible blow of its great Revolution.
We turn to Germany. Here it was that the Church of Rome had suffered her first great
losses, and here, under the arms of the Jesuits, was she destined to make a beginning
of those victories which recovered not a little of the ground she had lost. A generation
had passed away since the rise of Protestantism. It is the year 1550: the sons of the
men who had gathered round Luther occupy the stage when the van of this great
invading host makes its appearance. They come in silence; they are plain in their
attire, humble and submissive in their deportment; but behind them are the stakes and
scaffolds of the persecutor, and the armies of France and Spain. Their quiet words
find their terrible reverberations in those awful tempests of war which for thirty years
desolated Germany.
Ferdinand I of Austria, reflecting on the decay into which Roman Catholic feeling had
fallen in Germany, sent to Ignatius Loyola for a few zealous teachers to instruct the
youth of his dominions. In 1551, thirteen Jesuits, including Le Jay, arrived at Vienna.
They were provided with pensions, placed in the university chairs, and crept upwards
till they seized the entire direction of that seminary. From that hour date the crimes
and misfortunes of the House of Austria.[3]
A little colony of the disciples of Loyola had, before this, planted itself at Cologne. It
was not till some years that they took root in that city; but the initial difficulties
surmounted, they began to effect a change in public sentiment, which went on till
Cologne became, as it is sometimes called, the “Rome of the North.” About the same
time, the Jesuits became flourishing in Ingolstadt. They had been driven away on their
first entrance into that university seat, the professors dreading them as rivals; but in
1556 they were recalled, and soon rose to influence, as was to be expected in a city
where the memory of Dr. Eck was still fresh. Their battles, less noisy than his, were
fated to accomplish much more for the Papacy.
From these three centres - Vienna, Cologne, and Ingolstadt - the Jesuits extended
themselves over all Germany. They established colleges in the chief cities for the sons
of princes and nobles, and they opened schools in town and village for the instruction
of the lower classes. From Vienna they distributed their colonies throughout the
Austrian dominions. They had schools in the Tyrol and the cities at the foot of its
mountains. From Prague they ramified over Bohemia, and penetrated into Hungary.
Their colleges at Ingolstadt and Munich gave them the possession of Bavaria,
Franconia, and Swabia. From Cologne they extended their convents and schools over
Rhenish Prussia, and, planting a college at Spires, they counteracted the influence of
Heidelberg University, then the resort of the most learned men of the German nation.
Wherever the Jesuits came, there was quickly seen a manifest revival of the Popish
faith. In the short space of ten years, their establishments had become flourishing in
all the countries in which they were planted. Their system of education was adapted to
all classes. While they studied the exact sciences, and strove to rival the most
renowned of the Protestant professors, and so draw the higher youth into their
schools, they compiled admirable catechisms for the use of the poor. They especially
excelled as teachers of Latin; and so great was their zeal and their success, that “even
Protestants removed their children from distant schools, to place them under the care
of the Jesuits.”[4]
214
The teachers seldom failed to inspire the youth in their schools with their own
devotion to the Popish faith. The sons of Protestant fathers were drawn to confession,
and by-and-by into general conformity to Popish practices. Food which the Church
had forbidden they would not touch on the interdicted days, although it was being
freely used by the other members of the family. They began, too, to distinguish
themselves by the use of Popish symbols. The wearing of crosses and rosaries is
recorded by Ranke as one of the first signs of the setting of the tide toward Rome.
Forgotten rites began to be revived; relics which had been thrown aside buried in
darkness, were sought out and exhibited to the public gaze. The old virtue returned
into rotten bones, and the holiness of faded garments flourished anew. The saints of
the Church came out in bold relief, while those of the Bible receded into the distance.
The light of candles replaced the Word of Life in the temples; the newest fashions of
worship were imported from Italy, and music and architecture in the style of the
Restoration were called in to reinforce the movement. Customs which had not been
witnessed since the days of their grandfathers, began to receive the reverent
observance of the new generation. “In the year 1560, the youth of Ingolstadt
belonging to the Jesuit school walked, two and two, on a pilgrimage to Eichstadt, in
order to be strengthened for their confirmation by the dew that dropped from the tomb
of St. Walpurgis.”[5] The modes of though and feeling thus implanted in the schools
were, by means of preaching and confession, propagated through the whole
population.
While the Jesuits were busy in the seminaries, the Pope operated powerfully in the
political sphere. He had recourse to various arts to gain over the princes. Duke Albert
V of Bavaria had a grant made him of one-tenth of the property of the clergy. This
riveted his decision on the side of Rome, and he now set himself with earnest zeal and
marked success to restore, in its ancient purity and rigor, the Popery of his territories.
The Jesuits lauded the piety of the duke, who was a second Josias, a new
Theodosius.[6]
The Popes saw clearly that they could never hope to restore the ancient discipline and
rule of their Church without the help of the temporal sovereigns. Besides Duke
Albert, who so powerfully contributed to re-establish the sway of Rome over all
Bavaria, the ecclesiastical princes, who governed so large a part of Germany, threw
themselves heartily into the work of restoration. The Jesuit Canisins, a man of
blameless life, of consummate address, and whose great zeal was regulated by an
equal prudence, was sent to counsel and guide them. Under his management they
accepted provisionally the edicts of the Council of Trent. They required of all
professors in colleges subscription to a confession of the Popish faith.
They exacted the same pledge from ordinary schoolmasters and medical practitioners.
In many parts of Germany no one could follow a profession till first he had given
public proof of his orthodoxy. Bishops were required to exercise a more vigilant
superintendence of their clergy than they had done these twenty years past. The
Protestant preachers were banished; and in some parts the entire Protestant population
was driven out. The Protestant nobles were forbidden to appear at court. Many
withdrew into retirement, but others purchased their way back by a renunciation of
their faith. By these and similar arts Protestantism was conquered on what may be
regarded as its native soil. If not wholly rooted up it maintained henceforward but a
languishing existence; its leaf faded and its fruit died in the mephitic air around it,
215
while Romanism shot up in fresh strength and robustness. A whole century of
calamity followed the entrance of the Jesuits into Germany. The troubles they excited
culminated at last in the Thirty Years’ War. For the space of a generation the thunder
of battle continued to roll over the Fatherland. But the God of their fathers had not
forsaken the Germans; it pleased him to summon from the distant Sweden, Gustavus
Adolphus, and by his arm to save the remnants of Protestant liberty in that country.
Thus the Jesuits failed in their design of subjugating the whole of Germany, and had
to content themselves with dominating over those portions, unhappily large, of which
the ecclesiastical princes had given them possession at the first.
216
CHAPTER 9
COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES AND BANISHMENTS
Of the entrance of the Jesuits into England, the arts they employed, the disguises they
wore, the seditions they sowed, the snares they laid for the life of the sovereign, and
the plots they concocted for the overthrow of the Protestant Church, we shall have an
opportunity of speaking when we come to narrate the history of Protestantism in
Great Britain. Meanwhile, we consider their career in Poland.
Cardinal Hosius opened the gates of this country to the Jesuits. Till then Poland was a
flourishing country, united at home and powerful abroad. Its literature and science
during the half-century preceding had risen to an eminence that placed Poland on a
par with the most enlightened countries of Christendom. It enjoyed a measure of
toleration which was then unknown to most of the nations of Europe. Foreign
Protestants fled to it as a refuge from the persecution to which they were exposed in
their native land, bringing to their adopted country their skill, their wealth, and their
energy. Its trade increased, and its towns grew in population and riches. Italian,
German, French, and Scottish Protestant congregations existed at Cracow, Vilna, and
Posnania.[1] Such was Poland before the foot of Jesuit had touched its soil.
But from the hour that the disciples of Loyola entered the country Poland began to
decline. The Jesuits became supreme at court; the monarch Sigismund III, gave
himself entirely up to their guidance; no one could hope to rise in the State who did
not pay court to them; the education of youth was wholly in their hands, and the
effects became speedily visible in the decay of literature,[2] and the growing
decrepitude of the national mind. At home the popular liberties were attacked in the
persons of the Protestants, and abroad the nation was humiliated by a foreign policy
inspired by the Jesuits, which drew upon the country the contempt and hostility of
neighbouring powers. These evil courses of intrigue and faction within the country,
and impotent and arrogant policy outside of it, were persisted in till the natural issue
was reached in the partition of Poland. It is at the door of the Jesuits that the fall of
that once-enlightened, prosperous, and powerful nation is to be laid.
It concerns us less to follow the Jesuits into those countries which lie beyond the
boundaries of Christendom, unless in so far as their doings in these regions may help
to throw light on their principles and tactics. In following their steps among heathen
nations and savage races, it is alike impossible to withhold our admiration of their
burning zeal and intrepid courage, or our wonder at their prodigiously rapid success.
No sooner had the Jesuit missionary set foot on a new shore, or preached, by an
interpreter it might be, his first sermon in a heathen city, than his converts were to be
counted in tens of thousands. Speaking of their missions in India, Sacchinus, their
historian, says that “ten thousand men were baptized in the space of one year.”[3]
When the Jesuit mission to the East Indies was set on foot in 1559, Torrez procured
royal letters to the Portuguese viceroys and governors, empowering them to lend their
assistance to the missionaries for the conversion of the Indians. This shortened the
process wonderfully. All that had to be done was to ascertain the place where the
natives were assembled for some religious festival, and surround them with a troop of
soldiers, who, with levelled muskets, offered them the alternative of baptism. The rite
followed immediately upon the acceptance of the alternative; and next day the
217
baptized were taught the sign of the cross. In this excellent and summary way was the
evangelization of the island of Goa effected![4]
By similar methods did they attempt to plant the Popish faith and establish their own
dominion in Abyssinia, and also at Mozambique (1560) on the opposite coast of
Africa. One of the pioneers, Oviedo, who had entered Ethiopia, wrote thus to the
Pope: - “He must be permitted to inform his Holiness that, with the assistance of 500
or 600 Portuguese soldiers, he could at any time reduce the Empire of Abyssinia to
the obedience of the Pontificate; and when he considered that it was a country
surrounded with territories abounding with the finest gold, and promising a rich
harvest of souls to the Church, he trusted his Holiness would give the matter further
consideration.”[5] The Emperor of Ethiopia was gained by flatteries and miracles; a
terrible persecution was raised against the native Christians; thousands were
massacred; but at last, the king having detected the authors of these barbarities
plotting against his own life and throne, they were ignominiously expelled the
country.
Having secured the territory of Paraguay, a Portuguese possession in South America,
the Jesuits founded a kingdom there, and became its sovereigns. They treated the
natives at first with kindness, and taught them several useful arts, but by-and-by they
changed their policy, and, reducing them to slavery, compelled them to labour for
their benefit. Dealing out to the Paraguayan peasant from the produce of his own toil
as much as would suffice to feed and clothe him, the Fathers laid up the rest in large
storehouses, which they had erected for the purpose. They kept carefully concealed
from the knowledge of Europe this seemingly exhaustless source of wealth, that no
one else might share its sweets. They continued all the while to draw from it those
vast sums wherewith they carried on their machinations in the Old World. With the
gold wrung from the Paraguayan peasants’ toil they hired spies, bribed courtiers,
opened new missions, and maintained that pomp and splendour of their
establishments by which the populace were dazzled.[6]
Their establishments in Brazil formed the basis of a great and enriching trade, of
which Santa Fe and Buenos Ayres were the chief depots. But the most noted episode
of this kind in their history is that of Father Lavalette (1756). He was Visitor-General
and Apostolic Prefect of their Missions in the West Indies. “He organized offices in
St. Domingo, Granada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and other islands, and drew bills of
exchange on Paris, London, Bordeaux, Nantes, Lyons, Cadiz, Leghorn, and
Amsterdam.” His vessels, loaded with riches, comprising, besides colonial produce,
negro slaves, “crossed the sea continually.”[7] Trading on credit, they professed to
give the property of the society as security. Their methods of business were abnormal.
Treaties obeyed by other merchants they disregarded.
Neutrality laws were nothing to them. They hired ships which were used as traders or
privateers, as suited them, and sailed under whatever flag was convenient. At last,
however, came trouble to these Fathers, who were making, as the phrase is, “the best
of both worlds.” The Brothers Lioncy and Gouffre, of Marseilles, had accepted their
bills for a million and a half of livres, to cover which two vessels had been dispatched
for Martinique with merchandise to the value of two millions, unfortunately for the
Fathers, the ships were captured at sea by the English.
218
The house of Lioncy and Gouffre asked the superior of the Jesuits in Marseilles for
four thousand livres, as part payment of their debt, to save them from bankruptcy. The
Father replied that the society was not answerable, but he offered the Brothers Lioncy
and Gouffre the aid of their prayers, fortified by the masses which they were about to
say for them. The masses would not fill the coffers which the Jesuits had emptied, and
accordingly the merchants appealed to Parliament craving a decree for payment of the
debt. The appeal was allowed, and the Jesuits were condemned to honour the bills
drawn by their agent. At this critical moment the General of the society died: delay
was inevitable: the new General sent all the funds he could raise; but before these
supplies could reach Marseilles, Lioncy and Gouffre had become bankrupt, involving
in their misfortune their connections in all parts of France.
Now that the ruin had come and publicity was inevitable, the Jesuits refused to pay
the debt, pleading that they were protected from the claims of their creditors by their
Constitutions. The cause now came to a public hearing. After several pleas had been
advanced and abandoned, the Jesuits took their final stand on the argument which, in
an evil hour for themselves, they had put forth at first in their defence. Their rules,
they said, forbade them to trade; and the fault of individual members could not be
punished upon the Order: they were shielded by their Constitutions. The Parliament
ordered these documents to be produced. They had been kept secret till now. They
were laid before Parliament on the 16th of April, 1761. The result was disastrous for
the Jesuits. They lost their cause, and became much more odious than before. The
disclosure revealed Jesuitism to men as an organization based on the most iniquitous
maxims, and armed with the most terrible weapons for the accomplishment of their
object, which was to plant their own supremacy on the ruin of society. The
Constitutions were one of the principal grounds of the decree for the extinction of the
order in France, in 1762. [8]
That political kingdoms and civil communities should feel the Order a burden too
heavy to be borne, is not to be wondered at when we reflect that even the Popes, of
whose throne it was the pillar, have repeatedly decreed its extinction. Strange as it
may seem, the first bolt in later times that fell on the Jesuits was launched by the hand
of Rome. Benedict IV, by a bull issued in 1741, prohibited them from engaging in
trade and making slaves of the Indians. In 1759, Portugal, finding itself on the brink
of ruin by their intrigues, shook them off. This example was soon followed in France,
as we have already narrated. Even in Spain, with all its devotion to the Papal See, all
the Jesuit establishments were surrounded, one night in 1767, with troops, and the
whole fraternity, amounting to 7,000, were caught and shipped off to Italy.
Immediately thereafter a similar expulsion befell them in South America. Naples,
Malta, and Parma were the next to drive them from their soil. The severest blow was
yet to come. Clement XIII, hitherto their firm friend, yielding at last to the unanimous
demands of all the Roman Catholic courts, summoned a secret conclave for the
suppression of the Order: “a step necessary,” said the brief of his successor, “in order
to prevent Christians rising one against another, and massacring one another in the
very bosom of our common mother the Holy Church.” Clement died suddenly the
very evening before the day appointed for the conclave. Lorenzo Ganganelli was
elevated to the vacant chair under the title of Clement XIV. Ganganelli was studious,
learned, of pure morals, and of genuine piety. From the schoolmen he turned to the
Fathers, forsaking the Fathers he gave himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures,
where he learned on what Rock to fix the anchor of his faith. Clement XIV strove for
219
several years, with honest but mistaken zeal, to reform the Order. His-efforts were
fruitless. On the 21st of July, 1773, he issued the famous bull, “Dominus ac
Redemptor noster,” By which he “dissolved and for ever annihilated the Order as a
corporate body,” at a moment when it counted 22,000 members.[9]
The bull justifies itself by a long and formidable list of charges against the Jesuits.
Had this accusation proceeded from a Protestant pen it might have been regarded as
not free from exaggeration, but coming from the Papal chair it must be accepted as the
sober truth. The bull of Clement charged them with raising various insurrections and
rebellions, with plotting against bishops, undermining the regular monastic orders,
and invading pious foundations and corporations of every sort, not only in Europe, but
in Asia and America, to the danger of souls and the astonishment of all nations. It
charged them with engaging in trade, and that, instead of seeking to convert the
heathen, they had shown themselves intent only on gathering gold and silver and
precious jewels. They had interpolated pagan rites and manners with Christian beliefs
and worship: they had set aside the ordinances of the Church, and substituted opinions
which the apostolic chair had pronounced fundamentally erroneous and evidently
subversive of good morals. Tumults, disturbances, violences, had followed them in all
countries. In fine, they had broken the peace of the Church, and so incurably that the
Pontificates of his predecessors, Urban VIII, Clements IX, X, XI, and XII, Alexanders
VII and VIII, Innocents X, XI, XII, and XIII, and Benedict XIV, had been passed in
abortive attempts to re-establish the harmony and concord which they had destroyed.
It was now seen that the peace of the Church would never be restored while the Order
existed, and hence the necessity of the bull which dispossessed the Jesuits of “every
office, service, and administration;” took away from them “their houses, schools,
hospitals, estates;” withdrew “all their statutes, usages, decrees, customs, and
ordinances;” and pronounced “all the power of the General, Provincial, Visitors, and
every other head of the same Order, whether spiritual or secular, to be for ever
annulled and suppressed.” “The present ordinance,” said the bull, in conclusion, “shall
remain in full force and operation from henceforth and for ever.”
Nothing but the most tremendous necessity could have made Clement XIV issue this
bull. He knew well how unforgiving was the pride and how deadly the vengeance of
the Society, and he did not conceal from himself the penalty he should have to pay for
decreeing its suppression. On laying down his pen, after having put his name to the
bull, he said to those around him that he had subscribed his death-warrant.[10] The
Pope was at that time in robust health, and his vigorous constitution and temperate
habits promised a long life. But now dark rumours began to be whispered in Italy that
the Pontiff would die soon. In April of the following year he began to decline without
any apparent cause: his illness increased: no medicine was of any avail: and after
lingering in torture for months, he died, September 22nd, 1774. “Several days before
his death,” says Caraccioli, “his bones were exfoliated and withered like a tree which,
attacked at its roots, withers away and throws off its bark. The scientific men who
were called in to embalm his body found the features livid, the lips black, the
abdomen inflated, the limbs emaciated, and covered with violet spots. The size of the
head was diminished, and all the muscles were shrunk up, and the spine was
decomposed. They filled the body with perfumed and aromatic substances, but
nothing could dispel the mephitic effluvia.”[11]
220
The suppression with which Clement XIV smote the Society of Jesus was eternal; but
the “forever” of the bull lasted only in actual deed during the brief interval that
elapsed between 1773 and 1814. That short period was filled up with the awful
tempest of the French Revolution - to the fallen thrones and desecrated altars of which
the Jesuits pointed as the monuments of the Divine anger at the suppression of their
Order. Despite the bull of Clement, the Jesuits had neither ceased to exist nor ceased
to act. Amid the storms that shook the world they were energetically active.
In revolutionary conventions and clubs, in war-councils and committees, on battlefields they were present, guiding with unseen but powerful touch the course of affairs.
Their maxim is, if despotisms will not serve them, to demoralize society and render
government impossible, and from chaos to remodel the world anew. Thus the Society
of Jesus, which had gone out of existence before the Revolution, as men believed,
started up in full force the moment after, prepared to enter on the work of moulding
and ruling the nations which had been chastised but not enlightened. Scarcely had
Pins VII returned to the Vatican, when, by a bull dated August 7th, 1814, he restored
the Order of Jesus. Thaddeus Borzodzowsky was placed at their head. Once more the
brotherhood stalked abroad in their black birettas. In no long time their colleges,
seminaries, and novitiates began to flourish in all the countries of Europe, Ireland and
England not excepted.
Their numbers, swelled by the sodalities of “St. Vincent de Paul,” “Brothers of the
Christian Doctrine,” and other societies affiliated with the order, became greater,
perhaps, than they ever were at any former period. And their importance was vastly
enhanced by the fact that the contest between the “Order” and the “Papal Chair”
ended - temporarily, at any rate - in the enslavement of the Popedom, of which they
inspired the policy, indited the decrees, and wielded the power.
221
CHAPTER 10
RESTORATION OF THE INQUISITION
There is one arm of the Jesuits to which we have not yet adverted. The weapon that
we refer to was not indeed unknown to former times, but it had fallen out of order,
and had to be refurbished, and made fit for modern exigencies. No small part of the
success that attended the operations of the Jesuits was owing to their use of it. That
weapon was the Inquisition. We have narrated in a former chapter the earnest attempt
made at the Conference of Ratisbon to find a basis of conciliation between the
Protestant and the Popish churches. The way had been paved at Rome for this
attempted reconcilement of the two creeds by an infusion of new blood into the
College of Cardinals. Gaspar Contarini, a senator of Venice, who was known to hold
opinions on the doctrine of justification differing very little, if at all, from those of
Luther,[1] was invested with the purple of the cardinalate. The chair of the Doge
almost within his reach, Contarini was induced to come to Rome and devote the
influence of his high character and great talents to the doubtful experiment of
reforming the Papacy. By his advice, several ecclesiastics whose sentiments
approximated to his own were added to the Sacred College, among other Sadoleto,
Gioberto Caraffa, and Reginald Pole.
In the end, these new elections but laid a basis for a more determined and bloody
resistance to Protestantism. This was in the future as yet; meanwhile the reforming
measures, for which this change in the cardinalate was to pave the way, were taken.
Deputies were sent to the Ratisbon Conference, with instructions to make such
concessions to the Reformers as might not endanger the fundamental principles of the
Papacy, or strip the tiara of its supremacy. The issue was what we have announced in
a previous part of our history. When the deputies returned from the Diet, and told Paul
III that all their efforts to frame a basis of agreement between the two faiths had
proved abortive, and that there was not a country in Christendom where Protestantism
was not spreading, the Pope asked in alarm, “What then is to be done?” Cardinal
Caraffa, and John Alvarez de Toledo, Bishop of Burgos, to whom the question was
addressed, immediately made answer, Re-establish the Inquisition.
The proposal accorded well with the gloomy genius, unbending opinions, and stern
bigotry of the men from whom it came. Caraffa and Toledo were old Dominicans, the
same order to whom Innocent III had committed the working of the “Holy Tribunal,”
when it was first set up. Men of pure but austere life, they were prepared to endure in
their own persons, or to inflict on the persons of others, any amount of suffering and
pain, rather than permit the Roman Church to be overthrown. Re-establish the
Inquisition, said Caraffa; let the supreme tribunal be set up in Rome, with subordinate
branches ramifying over all Europe. “Here in Rome must the successors of Peter
destroy all the heresies of the whole world.”[2] The Jesuit historians take care to tell
us that Caraffa’s proposal was seconded by a special memorial from the founder of
their order, Ignatius Loyola.
The bull re-establishing the Inquisition was published July 21st, 1542. The “Holy
Office” revived with terrors unknown to it in former ages. It had now a plenitude of
power. Its jurisdiction extended over all countries, and not a man in all Christendom,
however exalted in rank or dignity, but was liable to be made answerable at its bar.
The throne was no protection; the altar was no shield; withered age and blooming
222
youth, matron and maiden, might any hour be seized by its familiars, and undergo the
question in the dark underground chamber, where, behind a table, with its crucifix and
taper, sat the inquisitor, his stern pitiless features surmounted by his black cowl, and
all around the instruments of torture. Till the most secret thought had been wrung out
of the breast, no mercy was to be shown. For the inquisitor to feel the least pity for his
writhing victim was to debase himself. Such were the instructions drafted by Caraffa.
The history of the man who restored the Inquisition is one of great interest, and more
than ordinary instruction, but it is touchingly sad.
Caraffa had been a member of the Oratory of Divine Love, which was a little circle of
moderate Reformers, that held its sitting in the Trastevere at Rome, and occupied, as
regarded the Reform of the Roman Church, a position midway between the
champions of things as they were, and the company of decided adherents of the
Gospel, which held its reunions at Chiaja, in Naples, and of which we shall speak
below. Caraffa had “tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to
come,” but the gracious stirrings of the Spirit, and the struggles of his own
conscience, he had quelled, and from the very threshold of Rest which he was seeking
in the Gospel, he had cast himself again into the arms of an infallible Church.
With such a history it was not possible that Caraffa could act a middle part. He threw
himself with sterner zeal into the dreadful work of reviving the Inquisition than did
even Paul III, under whom he served, and whom he was destined to succeed.
“Caraffa,” says the historian Ranke, “lost not a moment in carrying this edict into
execution; he would have thought it waste of time to wait for the usual issue of means
from the apostolic treasury, and, though by no means rich, he hired a house for
immediate proceedings at his own expense; this he fitted up with rooms for the
officers, and prisons for the accused, supplying the latter with strong bolts and locks,
with dungeons, chains, blocks, and every other fearful appurtenance of his office. He
appointed commissioners-general for the different countries.”[3]
The resolution to restore the Inquisition was taken at a critical moment for Italy, and
all the countries south of the Alps. The dawn of the Protestant day was breaking
around the very throne of the Pope. From the city of Ferrara in the north, where the
daughter of Louis XII, the correspondent of Calvin, sheltered in her palace the
disciples of the Gospel, to the ancient Parthenope, which looks down from its fig and
aloe covered heights upon the calm waters of its bay, the light was breaking in a
clearness and fullness that gave promise that in proportion to the depth of the previous
darkness, so would be the splendors of the coming day. Distinguished as the land of
the Renaissance, Italy seemed about to become yet more distinguished as the land of
Protestantism. At the foot of Fiesole, and in that Florence on which Cosine and the
brilliant group of scholars around him had so often looked down, while they talked of
Plato, there were men who had learned a better knowledge than that which the Greek
sage had taught. In Padua, in Bologna, in Lucca, in Modena, in Rome,[4] and in other
cities of classic fame, some of the first families had embraced the Gospel.
Men of rank in the State, and of eminence in the Church, persons of mark in the
republic of letters, orators, poets, and some noble ladies, as eminent for their talents as
for their birth, were not ashamed to enrol themselves among the disciples of that faith
which the Lutheran princes had confessed at Augsburg, and which Calvin was
propagating from the little town on the shores of the Leman, then beginning to attract
the notice of the world. But of all the Protestant groups now forming in Italy, none
223
equalled in respect of brilliance of rank, lustre of talent, and devotion of faith, that
which had gathered round Juan di Valdez on the lovely shore of Naples.
This distinguished Spaniard had been forced to leave the court of Charles V and his
native land for the sake of the Gospel. On the western arm of the Bay of Naples, hard
by the tomb of Virgil, looking forth on the calm sea, and the picturesque island of
Capri, with the opposite shore, on which Vesuvius, with its pennon of white vapour
atop, kept watch over the cities which 1,400 years before it had wrapped in a windingsheet of ashes, and enclosed in a tomb of lava, was placed the villa of Valdez. There
his friends often assembled to discuss the articles of the Protestant creed, and confirm
one another in their adherence to the Gospel. Among these was Peter Martyr
Vermigli, Prior of St. Peter’s ad aram. In the wilderness of Romanism the prior had
become parched with thirst, for no water could he find that could refresh his soul.
Valdez led him to a fountain, whereat Martyr drank, and thirsted no more. In his turn
he zealously led others to the same living stream. Another member of that Protestant
band was Caserta, a Neapolitan nobleman. He had a young relative, then wholly
absorbed in the gaieties and splendours of Naples; him Caserta introduced to Valdez.
This was Galeazzo Caraccioli, only son of the Marquis of Vice, who embraced the
Gospel with his whole heart, and when the tempest dispersed the brilliant company to
which he had joined himself, leaving his noble palace, his rich patrimony, his virtuous
wife, his dear children, and all his flourishing honours, he cleaved to the cross, and
repairing to Geneva was there, in the words of Calvin, “content with our littleness,
and lives frugally according to the habits of the commonalty - neither more nor less
than any one of us.”[5]
In 1536 this select society received another member. Bernardino Ochino, the great
orator of Italy, came at that time to Naples to preach the Lent Sermons. A native of
Sienna, he assumed the cowl of St. Francis, which he afterwards exchanged for the
frock of the more rigid order of the Capuchins. He was so eloquent that Charles V
said of him, “That man is enough to make the stones weep.” His discourses were
impregnated with the great principles of the Protestant faith, and his eloquence drew
overwhelming crowds to the Church of St. Giovanni Maggiore, where he was now
preaching. His accession to the society around Valdez gave it great additional
strength, for the preacher was daily scattering the seeds of Divine truth among the
common people. And not among these only, for persons of all ranks crowded to hear
the eloquent Capuchin. Among his audience might be seen Giulia de Gonzaga, widow
of the Duke of Trajetto, reputed the most beautiful woman in Italy, and, what was
higher praise, one of the most humble and sincere of its Christians. And there was
Vitteria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescaro, also renowned for the loveliness of her
person, and not less renowned for her talents and virtues.
And there was Pietro Carnesecchi, a patrician of Florence, and a former secretary of
Clement VII, now a disciple, and afterwards to be a martyr, of the Gospel. Such were
the illustrious men and the high-born women that formed this Protestant propaganda
in Naples. It comprehended elements of power which promised brilliant results in the
future. It formed a galaxy of rank, talent, oratory, genius, and tact, adapted to all
classes of the nation, and constituted, one would have thought, such an organisation or
“Bureau” as was sure to originate, and in due time accomplish, the Reformation of
Italy. The ravages the Gothic nations had inflicted, and the yet greater ravages of the
Papacy, were on the point of being repaired, and the physical loveliness which Italy
224
had known in her first days, and a moral beauty greater than she had ever known,
were about to be restored to her. It was during those same years that Calvin was
beginning his labours at Geneva, and fighting with the Pantheistic Libertines for a
secure foothold on which to place his Reformation, that this little phalanx of devoted
Protestant champions was formed on the shore of Naples.
Of the two movements, the southern one appeared at that hour by much the more
hopeful. Contemplated from a human point of view, it had all the elements of success.
Here the flower of an ancient nation was gathering on its own soil to essay the noble
task of evoking into a second development those mighty energies which had long
slumbered, but were not dead, in the bosom of a race that had given arts and letters
and civilisation to the West.
Every needful power and gift was present in the little company here confederate for
the glorious enterprise. Though small in numbers this little host was great in names,
comprehending as it did men of ancient lineage, of noble birth, of great wealth, of
accomplished scholarship, of poetical genius, and of popular eloquence. They could
appeal, moreover, to a past of renown, the traditions of which had not yet perished,
and the memory of which might be helpful in the struggle to shake off the yoke of the
present. These were surpassing advantages compared with the conditions of the
movement at Geneva - a little town which had borrowed glory from neither letters nor
arms; with a population rude, lawless, and insolent; a diminutive territory,
overshadowed on all sides by powerful and hostile monarchs, who stood with arm
uplifted to strike down Protestantism should it here raise its head; and, most
discouraging of all, the movement was guided by but one man of note, and he a
stranger, an exile, without the prestige of birth, or rank, or wealth. The movement at
Geneva can not succeed; that at Naples can not fail: so would we have said. But the
battle of Protestantism was not to the strong. The world needs to have the lesson often
repeated, that it is the truth of principles and not the grandeur of names that gives
assurance of victory. The young vine planted beneath the towers of the ancient
Parthenope, and which was shooting forth so hopefully in the golden air of that classic
region, was to wither and die, while that which had taken root beneath the shadow of
the Alps was to expand amid the rude blasts of the Swiss mountains, and stretch its
boughs over Christendom.
225
CHAPTER 11
THE TORTURES OF THE INQUISITION
The re-establishment of the Inquisition decided the question of the Reformation of
Italy. The country, struck with this blow as it was lifting itself up, instantly fell back
into the old gulf. It had become suddenly apparent that religious reform must be won
with a great fight of suffering, and Italy had not strength to press on through chains,
and dungeons, and scaffolds to the goal she wished to reach. The prize was glorious,
she saw, but the price was great. Pallavicino has confessed that it was the Inquisition
that saved Italy from lapsing into Protestantism.[1]
The religious question had divided the Italians of that day into three classes. The bulk
of the nation had not thought on the question at all, and harboured no purpose of
leaving the Church of Rome. To them the restoration of the Inquisition had no terrors.
There was another and large class who had abandoned Rome, but who had not
clearness to advance to the open profession of Protestantism. They were most to be
pitied of all should they fall into the hands of the inquisitors, seeing they were too
undecided either to decline or to face the horrors of the Holy Office. The third class
were in no doubt as to the course they must pursue. They could not return to a Church
which they held to be superstitious, and they had no alternative before them but
provide for their safety by flight, or await death amid the fires of the Inquisition. The
consternation was great; for the Protestants had not dreamed of their enemies having
recourse to such violent measures. Numbers fled, and these fugitives were to be found
in every city of Switzerland and Germany.[2] Among these was Bernardino Ochino,
on whose eloquent orations all ranks of his countrymen had been hanging but a few
months before, and in whose audience the emperor himself might be seen when he
visited Italy. Not, however, till he had been served with a citation from the Holy
Office at Rome did Ochino make his escape. Flight was almost as bitter as death to
the orator. He was leaving behind him the scene of those brilliant triumphs which he
could not hope to renew on a foreign soil. Pausing on the summit of the Great St.
Bernard, he devoted a few moments to those feelings of regret which were so natural
on abandoning so much that he could not hope ever again to enjoy. He then went
forward to Geneva. But, alas! the best days of the eloquent monk were past. At
Geneva, Ochino’s views became tainted and obscured with the new philosophy,
which was beginning to air itself at that young school of pantheism.
Peter Martyr Vermigli soon followed. He was presiding over the convent of his order
in Lucca, when the storm came with such sudden violence. He set his house in order
and fled; but it was discovered after he was gone that the heresy remained although
the heretic had escaped, his opinions having been embraced by many of the Luccese
monks. The same was found to be the case with the order to which Ochino belonged,
the Capuchins namely, and the Pope at first meditated, as the only cure, the
suppression of both orders. Peter Martyr went ultimately to Strasburg, and a place was
found for him in its university, where his lamp continued to burn clearly to the close.
Juan di Valdez died before the tempest burst, which drove beyond the Alps so many
of the distinguished group that had formed itself around him at Pausilippo, and saw
not the evil days which came on his adopted country. But the majority of those who
had embraced the Protestant faith were unable to escape. They were immured in the
prisons of the various Holy Offices throughout Italy; some were kept in dark cells for
years, in the hope that they would recant, others were quickly relieved by martyrdom.
226
The restorer of the Inquisition, the once reforming Caraffa, mounted the Papal chair,
under the name of Paul IV. The rigors of the Holy Office were not likely to be relaxed
under the new Pope; but twenty years were needed to enable the torture and the stake
to annihilate the Protestants of Italy.[3]
Of those who suffered martyrdom we shall mention only two - Mollio, a Bolognese
professor, renowned throughout Italy for his learning and his pure life; and Tisserano,
a native of Perugia. On the 15th of September, 1553, an assembly of the Inquisition,
consisting of six cardinals with their episcopal assessors, was held with great pomp at
Rome. A train of prisoners, with burning tapers in their hands, was led in before the
tribunal. All of them recanted save Mollio and Tisserano. On leave being given them
to speak, Mollio broke out, says McCrie, “in a strain of bold and fervid invective,
which chained them to their seats, at the same time that it cut them to the quick.” He
rebuked his judges for their lewdness, their avarice, and their blood-thirsty cruelty,
and concluded as follows: “‘Wherefore I appeal from your sentence, and summon you, cruel tyrants and
murderers, to answer before the judgment-seat of Christ at the last day, where your
pompous titles and gorgeous trappings will not dazzle, nor your guards and torturing
apparatus terrify us. And in testimony of this, take back that which you have given
me.’ In saying this, he threw the flaming torch which he held in his hand on the
ground, and extinguished it. Galled, and gnashing upon him with their teeth, like the
persecutors of the first Christian martyrs, the cardinals ordered Mollio, together with
his companion, who approved of the testimony he had borne, to instant execution.
They were conveyed, accordingly, to the Campo del Flor, where they died with the
most pious fortitude.”[4]
The eight years that elapsed between 1534 and 1542 are notable ones in the annals of
Protestant history. That epoch witnessed the birth of three movements, Which were
destined to stamp a character upon the future of Europe, and powerfully to modify the
conflict then in progress in Christendom. In 1534 the Jesuits recorded their first vow
in the Church of Montmartre, in Paris. In 1540 their society was regularly launched by
the Papal edict. In 1542, Paul III issued the bull for the re-establishment of the
Inquisition; and in 1541 Calvin returned to Geneva, to prepare that spiritual army that
was to wage battle with Jesuitism backed by the Inquisition. The meeting of these
dates - the contemporaneous rise of these three instrumentalities, is sufficiently
striking, and is one of the many proofs which we meet in history that there is an Eye
watching all that is done on earth, and that never does an agency start up to destroy
the world, but there is set over against it a yet more powerful agency to convert the
evil it would inflict into good.
It is one of these great epochs at which we have arrived. Jesuitism, the consummation
of error - the Inquisition, the maximum of force, stand up and array themselves
against a now fully developed Protestantism. In following the steps of the combatants,
we shall be led in succession to the mountains of the Waldenses, to the cities of
France, to the swamps of Holland, to the plains of Germany, to Italy, to Spain, to
England and Scotland. Round the whole of Christendom will roll the tide of this great
battle, casting down one nation into the darkness of slavery, and lifting up another
into the glory of freedom, and causing the gigantic crimes of the persecutor and the
despot to be forgotten in the excelling splendour of the patriot and the martyr. This is
the struggle with the record of which we shall presently be occupied. Meanwhile we
227
proceed to describe one of those few Inquisitions that remain to this day in almost the
identical state in which they existed when the Holy Office was being vigorously
worked. This will enable us to realize more vividly the terror of that weapon which
Paul III prepared for the hands of the Jesuits, and the Divine power of that faith which
enabled the confessors of the Gospel to withstand and triumph over it.
Turn we now to the town of Nuremberg, in Bavaria. The zeal with which Duke
Albert, the sovereign of Bavaria, entered into the restoration of Roman Catholicism,
we have already narrated. To further the movement, he provided every one of the
chief towns of his dominions with a Holy Office, and the Inquisition of Nuremberg
still remains - an anomalous and horrible monument in the midst of a city where the
memorials of an exquisite art, and the creations of an unrivalled genius, meet one at
every step. We shall first describe the Chamber of Torture.[5]
The house so called immediately adjoins the Imperial Castle, which from its lofty site
looks down on the city, whose Gothic towers, sculptured fronts, and curiously
ornamented gables are seen covering both banks of the Pegnitz, which rolls below.
The house may have been the guard-room of the castle. It derives its name, the
Torture-chamber, not from the fact that the torture was here inflicted, but because into
this one chamber has been collected a complete set of the instruments of torture
gleaned from the various Inquisitions that formerly existed in Bavaria. A glance
suffices to show the whole dreadful apparatus by which the adherents of Rome sought
to maintain her dogmas. Placed next to the door, and greeting the sight as one enters,
is a collection of hideous masks. These represent creatures monstrous of shape, and
malignant and fiendish of nature, It is in beholding them that we begin to perceive
how subtle was the genius that devised this system of coercion, and that it took the
mind as well as the body of the victim into account. In gazing on them, one feels as if
he had suddenly come into polluting and debasing society, and had sunk to the same
moral level with the creatures here figured before him. He suffers a conscious
abatement of dignity and fortitude. The persecutor had calculated, doubtless, that the
effect produced upon the mind of his victim by these dreadful apparitions, would be
that he would become morally relaxed, and less able to sustain his cause. Unless of
strong mind, indeed, the unfortunate prisoner, on entering such a place, and seeing
himself encompassed with such unearthly and hideous shapes, must have felt as if he
were the vile heretic which the persecutor styled him, and as if already the infernal
den had opened its portals, and sent forth its venomous swarms to bid him welcome.
Yourself accursed, with accursed beings are you henceforth to dwell - such was the
silent language of these abhorred images.
We pass on into the chamber, where more dreadful sights meet our gaze. It is hung
round and round with instruments of torture, so numerous that it would take a long
while even to name them, and so diverse that it would take a much longer time to
describe them. We must take them in groups, for it were hopeless to think of going
over them one by one, and particularising the mode in which each operated, and the
ingenuity and art with which all of them have been adapted to their horrible end.
There were instruments for compressing the fingers till the bones should be squeezed
to splinters. There were instruments for probing below the finger-nails till an exquisite
pain, like a burning fire, would run along the nerves. There were instruments for
tearing out the tongue, for scooping out the eyes, for grubbing-up the ears. There were
bunches of iron cords, with a spiked circle at the end of every whip, for tearing the
228
flesh from the back till bone and sinew were laid bare. There were iron cases for the
legs, which were tightened upon the limb placed in them by means of a screw, till
flesh and bone were reduced to a jelly. There were cradles set full of sharp spikes, in
which victims were laid and rolled from side to side, the wretched occupant being
pierced at each movement of the machine with innumerable sharp points. There were
iron ladles with long handles, for holding molten lead or boiling pitch, to be poured
down the throat of the victim, and convert his body into a burning cauldron. There
were frames with holes to admit the hands and feet, so contrived that the person put
into them had his body bent into unnatural and painful positions, and the agony grew
greater and greater by moments, and yet the man did not die. There were chests full of
small but most ingeniously constructed instruments for pinching, probing, or tearing
the more sensitive parts of the body, and continuing the pain up to the very verge
where reason or life gives way. On the floor and walls of the apartment were other
and larger instruments for the same fearful end - lacerating, mangling, and agonizing
living men; but these we shall meet in other dungeons we are yet to visit.
The first impression on entering the chamber was one of bewildering horror; a
confused procession of mangled, mutilated, agonising men, speechless in their great
woe, the flesh peeled from off their livid sinews, the sockets where eyes had been,
hollow and empty, seemed to pass before one. The most dreadful scenes which the
great genius of Dante has imagined, appeared tame in comparison with the spectral
groups which this chamber summoned up. The first impulse was to escape, lest
images of pain, memories of tormented men, who were made to die a hundred deaths
in one, should take hold of one’s mind, never again to be effaced from it.
The things we have been surveying are not the mere models of the instruments made
use of in the Holy Office; they are the veritable instruments themselves. We see
before us the actual implements by which hundreds and thousands of men and
women, many of them saints and confessors of the Lord Jesus, were torn, and
mangled, and slain. These terrible realities the men of the sixteenth century had to
face and endure, or renounce the hope of the life eternal. Painful they were to flesh
and blood - nay, not even endurable by flesh and blood unless sustained by the Spirit
of the mighty God.
We leave the Torture-chamber to visit the Inquisition proper. We go eastward, about
half a mile, keeping close to the northern wall of the city, till we come to an old
tower, styled in the common parlance of Nuremberg the Max Tower. We pull the bell,
the iron handle and chain of which are seen suspended beside the door-post. The
cicerone appears, carrying a bunch of keys, a lantern, and some half-dozen candles.
The lantern is to show us our way, and the candles are for the purpose of being lighted
and stuck up at the turnings in the dark underground passages which we are about to
traverse. Should mischance befall our lantern, these tapers, like beacon-lights in a
narrow creek, will pilot us safely back into the day. The cicerone, selecting the largest
from the bunch of keys, inserts it in the lock of the massy portal before which we
stand, bolt after bolt is turned, and the door, with hoarse heavy groan as it turns on its
hinge, opens slowly to us. We begin to descend. We go down one flight of steps; we
go down a second flight; we descend yet a third. And now we pause a moment. The
darkness is intense, for here never came the faintest glimmer of day; but a gleam
thrown forward from the lantern showed us that we were arrived at the entrance of a
horizontal, narrow passage. We could see, by the flickering of the light upon its sides
229
and roof, that the corridor we were traversing was hewn out of the rock. We had gone
only a few paces when we were brought up before a massy door. As far as the dim
light served us, we could see the door, old, powdery with dust, and partly worm-eaten.
Passing in, the corridor continued, and we went forward other three paces or so, when
we found ourselves before a second door. We opened and shut it behind us as we did
the first. Again we began to thread our way: a third door stopped us. We opened and
closed it in like manner. Every step was carrying us deeper into the heart of the rock,
and multiplying the barriers between us and the upper world. We were shut in with
the thick darkness and the awful silence. We began to realize what must have been the
feelings of some unhappy disciple of the Gospel, surprised by the familiars of the
Holy Office, led through the midnight streets of Nuremberg, conducted to Max
Tower, led down flight after flight of stairs, and along this horizontal shaft in the rock,
and at every few paces a massy door, with its locks and bolts, closing behind him! He
must have felt how utterly he was beyond the reach of human pity and human aid. No
cry, however piercing, could reach the ear of man through these roofs of rock. He was
entirely in the power of those who had brought him thither.
At last we came to a side-door in the narrow passage. We halted, applied the key, and
the door, with its ancient mould, creaking harshly as if moving on a hinge long
disused, opened to let us in. We found ourselves in a rather roomy chamber, it might
be about twelve feet square. This was the Chamber of Question. Along one side of the
apartment ran a low platform. There sat of old the inquisitors, three in number - the
first a divine, the second a casuist, and the third a civilian. The only occupant of that
platform was the crucifix, or image of the Saviour on the cross, which still remained.
The six candles that usually burned before the “holy Fathers” were, of course,
extinguished, but our lantern supplied their place, and showed us the grim furnishings
of the apartment. In the middle was the horizontal rack or bed of torture, on which the
victim was stretched till bone started from bone, and his dislocated frame became the
seat of agony, which was suspended only when it had reached a pitch that threatened
death.
Leaning against the wall of the chamber was the upright rack, which is simpler, but as
an instrument of torture not less effectual, than the horizontal one. There was the iron
chain which wound over a pulley, and hauled up the victim to the vaulted roof; and
there were the two great stone weights which, tied to his feet, and the iron cord let go,
brought him down with a jerk that dislocated his limbs, while the spiky rollers, which
he grazed in his descent, cut into and excoriated his back, leaving his body a bloody,
dislocated mass.[6]
Here, too, was the cradle of which we have made mention above, amply garnished
within with cruel knobs, on which the sufferer, tied hand and foot, was thrown at
every movement of the machine, to be bruised all over, and brought forth discoloured,
swollen, bleeding, but still living. All round, ready to hand, were hung the minor
instruments of torture. There were screws and thumbkins for the fingers, spiked
collars for the neck, iron boots for the legs, gags for the mouth, cloths to cover the
face, and permit the slow percolation of water, drop by drop, down the throat of the
person undergoing this form of torture. There were rollers set round with spikes, for
bruising the arms and back; there were iron scourges, pincers, and tongs for tearing
out the tongue, slitting the nose and ears, and otherwise disfiguring and mangling the
body till it was horrible and horrifying to look upon it. There were other things of
230
which an expert only could tell the name and the use. Had these instruments a tongue,
and could the history of this chamber be written, how awful the tale!
We shall suppose that all this has been gone through; that the confessor has been
stretched on the bed of torture; has been gashed, broken, mangled, and yet, by power
given him from above, has not denied his Saviour: he has been “tortured not accepting
deliverance:” what further punishment has the Holy Office in reserve for those from
whom its torments have failed to extort a recantation? These dreadful dungeons
furnish us with the means of answering this question.
We return to the narrow passage, and go forward a little way. Every few paces there
comes a door, originally strong and massy, and garnished with great iron knobs but
now old and mouldy, and creaking when opened with a noise painfully loud in the
deep stillness. The windings are numerous, but at every turning of the passage a
lighted candle is placed, lest peradventure the way should be missed, and the road
back to the living world be lost for ever. A few steps are taken downwards, very
cautiously, for a lantern can barely show the ground. Here there is a vaulted chamber,
entirely dug out of the living rock, except the roof, which is formed of hewn stone. It
contains an iron image of the Virgin; and on the opposite wall, suspended by an iron
hook, is a lamp, which when lighted shows the goodly proportions of “Our Lady.” On
the instant of touching a spring the image flings open its arms, which resemble the
doors of a cupboard, and which are seen to be stuck full on the inside with poignards,
cach about a foot in length. Some of these knives are so placed as to enter the eyes of
those whom the image enfolded in its embrace, others are set so as to penetrate the
ears and brain, others to pierce the breast, and others again to gore the abdomen.
The person who had passed through the terrible ordeal of the Question-chamber, but
had made no recantation, would be led along the tortuous passage by which we had
come, and ushered into this vault, where the first object that would greet his eye, the
pale light of the lamp falling on it, would be the iron Virgin. He would be bidden to
stand right in front of the image. The spring would be touched by the executioner - the
Virgin would fling open her arms, and the wretched victim would straightway be
forced within them. Another spring was then touched - the Virgin closed upon her
victim; a strong wooden beam, fastened at one end to the wall by a movable joint, the
other placed against the doors of the iron image, was worked by a screw, and as the
beam was pushed out, the spiky arms of the Virgin slowly but irresistibly closed upon
the man, cruelly goring him.
When the dreadful business was ended, it needed not that the executioner should put
himself to the trouble of making the Virgin unclasp the mangled carcase of her victim;
provision had been made for its quick and secret disposal. At the touching of a third
spring, the floor of the image would slide aside, and the body of the victim drop down
the mouth of a perpendicular shaft in the rock. We look down this pit, and can see, at
a great depth, the shimmer of water. A canal had been made to flow underneath the
vault where stood the iron Virgin, and when she had done her work upon those who
were delivered over to her tender mercies, she let them fall, with quick descent and
sullen plunge, into the canal underneath, where they were floated to the Pegnitz, and
from the Pegnitz to the Rhine, and by the Rhine to the ocean, there to sleep beside the
dust of Huss and Jerome.
231
FOOTNOTES - BOOK FIFTEEN
CHAPTER 1
[1] Ranke, Hist. of the Popes, bk. 2, sec. 4, p. 138; Lond., 1874.
[2] Ibid., pp. 138, 139.
[3] Ranke, bk. 2, sec. 4, pp. 138, 139.
[4] Ibid., p. 140.
CHAPTER 2
[1] Ranke, bk. 2, sec. 4, p. 143, foot-note.
[2] Duller, The Jesuits, pp. 10, 11. Ranke, bk. 2, sec. 4. pp. 143, 144. 1100
[3] Homo Orat. a J. Nouet, S.J.
[4] Duller, p. 12.
[5] “Raised to the government of the church Militant.”
CHAPTER 3
[1] Bouhours, Life of Ignatius, bk. 1, p. 248.
[2] See Mariani, Life of Loyola; Rome. 1842 - English translation by Card.
Wiseman’s authority; Lond., 1847. Bouhours, Life of Ignatius, bk. 3, p. 282.
[3] Report on the Constitutions of the Jesuits, delivered by M. Louis Rene de Caraduc
de la Chalotais, Procureur-General of the King, to the Parliament of Bretagne; 1761.
In obedience to the Court. Translated from the French edition of 1762. Lond., 1868.
Pages 16, 17.
[4] “Solus praepositus Generalis autoritatem habet regulas condendi.” (Can. 3rd.,
Congreg. 1, p. 698, tom. 1.)
[5] Chalotais, Report on the Constitutions of the Jesuits, pp. 19-23.
[6] Duller, p. 54.
[7] Such was their number in 1761, when Chalotais gave in his Report to the
Parliament of Bretagne.
[8] Chalotais’ Report. Duller p. 54.
[9] Constit. Societatis Jesu, pars. 1, cap. 4, sec. 1, 2.
[10] Examen 3 and 4, sec. 1 and 2 - Parroisien, Principles of the Jesuits, pp. 16-19;
Lond., 1860.
232
[11] Constit. Societatis Jesu, pars. 3, cap. 2, sec. 1, and pars, 5, cap. 4, sec. 5Parroisien, p. 22.
[12] Ibid., pars. 4, cap. 3, sec. 2.
[13] Ibid., pars. 8, cap. 1, sec. 2.
[14] Examen 6, sec. 1.
[15] Constit. Societatis Jesu, pars. 1, cap. 2, sec. 2.
[16] Ibid., pars. 8, cap. 3, A.
[17] “Locum Dei teneti.” (Constit. Societatis Jesu, pars. 5, cap. 4, sec. 2.)
[18] Constit. Societatis Jesu, pars. 7, cap. 1, sec. 1.
[19] Chalotais, Report Const. Jesuits, p. 62.
[20] Constit. Societatis Jesu, pars. 6, cap. 1, sec. 1.
[21] Constit. Societatis Jesu, pars. 6, cap. 1, sec. 1.
[22] The Jesuits. By Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D. Pages 19, 20. Edin., 1869.
CHAPTER 4
[1] Father Antoine Escobar, of Mendoza. He is said by his friends to have been a good
man, and a laborious student. He compiled a work in six volumes, entitled Exposition
of Uncontroverted Opinions in Moral Theology. It afforded a rich field for the satire
of Pascal. Its characteristic absurdity is that its questions uniformly exhibit two faces an affirmative and a negative - so that escobarderie became a synonym in France for
duplicity.
[2] Ferdinand de Castro-Palao was a Jesuit of Spain, and author of a work on Virtues
and Vices, published in 1621.
[3] Escobar. tr. 1, ex. 2, n. 21; and tr. 5, ex. 4, n. 8. Sirmond, Def. Virt., tr. 2, sec. 1.
[4] It is of no avail to object that these are the sentiments of individual Jesuits, and
that it is not fair to impute them to the society. It was a particular rule in the Company
of Jesus, “that nothing should be published by any of its members without the
approbation of their superiors.” An express order was made obliging them to this in
France by Henry III., 1583, confirmed by Henry IV., 1603, and by Louis XIII., 1612.
So that the whole fraternity became responsible for all the doctrines taught in the
books of its individual members, unless they were expressly condemned.
[5] Probabilism will be denied, but it has not been renounced. In a late publication a
member of the society has actually attempted to vindicate it. See De l’Existence et de
l’Institute des Jesuites. Par le R, P. de Ravignan, de la Compagnie de Jesus. Paris,
1845. Page 83.
233
[6] Pascal. Provincial Letters, p. 70; Edin., 1847.
[7] The Provincial Letters. Letter 8, p. 96; Edin., 1847.
[8] In Praxi, livr. 21, num. 62.
[9] De Just., livr. 2, c. 9, d. 12, n. 79.
[10] De Spe, vol. 2, d. 15, sec. 4.
[11] De Sub. Pecc., diff. 9.
[12] Sanchez, Mor. Theol., livr. 2, c. 39, n. 7.
CHAPTER 5
[1] “A quocumque privato potest interfici.” - Suarez (1, 6, ch. 4) - Chalotais, Report
Constit. Jesuits, p. 84.
[2] “There are,” adds M. de la Chalotais, in a footnote, “nearly 20,000 Jesuits in the
world [1761], all imbued with Ultramontane doctrines, and the doctrine of murder.”
That is more than a century ago. Their numbers have prodigiously increased since.
[3] Maxiana,. De Rege et Regis Institutione, lib. 1, cap. 6, p. 61, and lib. 1, cap. 7, p.
64; ed. 1640.
[4] Sanch. OP. Mot., pars. 2, lib. 3, cap. 6.
[5] Mor. Quest. de Christianis Officiis et Casibus Conscientice, tom. 2, tr. 25, cap. 11,
n. 321-328; Lugduni, 1633.
[6] It is easy to see how these precepts may be put in practice in swearing the oath of
allegiance, or promising to obey the law, or engaging not to attack the institutions of
the State, or to obey the rules and further the ends of any society, lay or clerical, into
which the Jesuit may enter. The swearer has only to repeat aloud the prescribed
words, and insert silently such other words, at the fitting places, as shall make void
the oath, clause by clause - nay, bind the swearer to the very opposite of that which
the administrator of the oath intends to pledge him to.
[7] Stephen Bauny, Som. des Peches; Rouen, 1653.
[8] Crisis Theol., tom. 1, disp. 6, sect. 2, Section 1, n. 59.
[9] Praxis Fori Poenit., tom. 2, lib. 21, cap. 5, n. 57.
[10] In Proecep. Decal., tom. 1, lib. 4, cap. 2, n. 7, 8.
[11] Cursus Theol., tom. 5,disp. 36, sec. 5, n. 118.
[12] Cens., pp. 319, 320 - Collation faite d la requete de l’U’niversite de Paris, 1643;
Paris, 1720
[13] Aphorismi Confessariorum - verbo furtum, n. 3 - 8; Coloniae, 1590.
234
[14] Instruct to Sacerdotum - De Septera Peccat. Mort., cap. 49, n. 5; Romae, 1601.
[15] Praxis Fori Peenitentialis, lib. 25, cap. 44, n. 555; Lugduni, 1620.
[16] Pascal, Letter 6, pp. 90,91; Edin., 1847.
CHAPTER 6
[1] See Ephesians 6:14-17.
[2] Secreta Monita, cap. 1, sec. 1.
[3] Ibid., cap. 1, sec. 5.
[4] Ibid., cap. 1, sec. 6.
[5] Ibid. (tr. from a French copy, London, 1679), cap. 1, sec. 11.
[6] Secreta Monita, cap. 2, sec. 2.
[7] Seereta Monita, cap. 2, sec. 5.
[8] Ibid., cap. 2, sec. 9, 10.
[9] Ibid., cap. 3, sec. 1.
[10] “Praeter cantum.” (Secreta Monita, cap. 3, sec. 3.)
[11] Secreta Monita, cap. 4, sec. 1 - 6.
CHAPTER 7
[1] Secteta Monita, cap. 6, see. 6.
[2] Ibid., cap. 6, sec. 8.
[3] Secreta Monita, cap. 6., sec. 10.
[4] Secreta Monita, cap. 7, sec. 23.
[5] Secreta Monita, cap. 7, sec. 24.
[6] Secreta Monita, cap. 9, sec. 1.
[7] Ibid., sec. 4.
[8] Ibid., sec. 5.
[9] Contractus et possessiones” - leases and possessions. (Lat. et Ital. ed., Roma. Con
approv.)
[10] Secreta Morita, cap. 9, seca 7 - 10.
235
[11] Ostendendo etiam Deo sacrificium gratissimum fore si parentibus insciis et
invitis aufugerit.” (Lat. ed., cap. 9, sec. 8. L’Estrange’s tr., sec. 4.)
[12] A Master Key to Popery, p. 70.
[13] Seereta Moita, cap. 9, sec. 18, 19.
[14] Ibid., cap. 16 (L’Estrange’s tr.); printed as the Preface in the Latin edition.
[15] Secrete Menira; Lend., 1850. Pref. by H. M. W., p. 9.
[16] Among the various editions of the Secreta Monita we mention the following: Bishop Compton’s translation; Lond., 1669. Sir Roger L’Estrange’s translation;
Lond., 1679; it was made from a French copy, printed at Cologne, 1678. Another
edition, containing the Latin text with an English translation, dedicated to Sir Robert
Walpole, Premier of England: Lond., 1723. This edition says, in the Preface, that Mr.
John Schipper, bookseller at Amsterdam, bought a copy of the Secreta Monita, among
other books, at Antwerp, and reprinted it. The Jesuits bought up the whole edition, a
few copies excepted. From one of these it was afterwards reprinted. Of late years
there have been several English reprints. One of the copies which we have used in this
compend of the book was printed at Rome, in the printing-press of the Propaganda,
and contains the Latin text page for page with a translation in Italian.
[17] The Cabinet of the Jesuits’ Secrete Opened; Lond., 1679.
CHAPTER 8
[1] Ranke, Hist. of the Popes, book. 2, sec. 7.
[2] Duller, Hist. of the Jesuits, p. 83; Lond., 1845.
[3] Ranke, book 5, sec. 3.
[4] Ranke, book 5, sec. 3.
[5] Ranke, bk. v., sec. 3.
[6] Ibid.
CHAPTER 9
[1] Krasinski, Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Reformation in Poland, volume 2, p.
196; Lond., 1840.
[2] Krasinski, vol. 2., pp. 197, 198.
[3] Sacchinus, lib. 6., p. 172.
[4] Steinmetz, Hist. of the Jesuits, vol. 2, pp. 46 - 48. Sacchinus, lib. 3, p. 129.
[5] Steinmetz, lib. 2., p. 59.
[6] Duller, Hist. of the Jesuits, pp. 135 - 138.
236
[7] A Glimpse of the Great Secret Society, p. 79; ed. Lond., 1872.
[8] A Glimpse of the Great Secret Society, pp. 78 - 81. Chalotais, Report to Parl. of
Bretagne.
[9] Duller, Hist. of the Jesuits, p. 151.
[10] “Sotto-scriviamo la nostra morte.”
[11] All the world believed that Clement had been made to drink the Aqua Tofana, a
spring in Perugia more famous than healthful. Some one has said that if Popes are not
liable to err, they are nevertheless liable to sudden death.
CHAPTER 10
[1] So he himself declared on his death-bed to Bernardino Ochino in 1542. (McCrie,
Prog. and Sup. Ref. in Italy, p. 220.)
[2] Bromato, Vita di Paolo, tom. 4, lib. 7, sec. 3. Ranke, book 2, sec. 6.
[3] Ranke, book 2, sec. 6.
[4] See McCrie, Prog. and Supp. Ref. in Italy, chap. 3.
[5] Calvin, Comment, on 1st Corinthians - Dedication.
CHAPTER 11
[1] Istoria Cone. Trent, lib. 14., cap. 9.
[2] Ranke, book. 2., sec. 6, p. 157; Lond., 1847.
[3] McCrie’s Italy, p 233; Ed., 1833.
[4] Ib., pp. 318 - 320.
[5] The Author was conducted over the Inquisition at Nuremberg in September, 1871,
and wrote the description given of it in the text immediately thereafter on the spot.
Others must have seen it, but he knows of no one who has described it.
[6] The Author has described with greater minuteness the horizontal and upright racks
in his account of the dungeons underneath the Town-house of Nuremberg. (See ante,
book 9, chapter 5, p. 501.)
237