Our advocates are decided and prompt to every thing; but in their intercourse with our opponents they are too temporizing. It grieves me, that Bucer is exciting against himself the displeasure of so many persons. Being conscious of his own integrity, he expects more security from it than circumstances will warrant. We should not be so satisfied with our purity of conscience as to throw off all regard to the opinions of our brethren.”
more masterly than his own scriptural commentaries. The Christian Observer proceeds to remark thus: “It should be observed in common justice to Calvin, that his very highest notions of absolute decrees are by his own representations, as entirely practical in their results as any
opinion gathered from the decalogue; that he himself would be the last man to defend the religion of a licentious predestinarian; nay, that he would utterly deny any such character to be possessed of a particle of genuine faith; but, on the contrary, would view him as a practical atheist, whose speculations about grace were only a species of more elaborate blasphemy.
“Consistently with the fundamental principle of the Reformation, Calvin went directly to the Bible, and not by the circuitous route of councils and fathers; although he frequently refers to them with much veneration, and has indeed constructed the work before us f43 in the order of the Apostle’s Creed, considering it to be a brief compend of Christianity, of high antiquity, though not of inspired origin. He seems to have been perfectly aware (as we have been lately and truly reminded) that the introduction of the fathers into the ranks of controversy, as decisive authorities, was as impolitic as the obsolete practice of bringing elephants into battle; such allies being, in the contingencies of an engagement dangerous alike to both armies. f44
“Liberated, however, as he was, from ecclesiastical fetters, yet well knowing the dangers resulting from independence, there was, to a serious mind, a third consideration, which if duly regarded, would certainly restore the equilibrium when disturbed by the other causes; namely, that having no accredited church to lean upon on the one hand; and, on the other, being at the disposal of an
individual not to be trusted, (for every religious man is suspicious of himself,) the only resource was the volume of inspiration; and this resource was happily a safe and effectual one. To this infallible guide, therefore, he resorted; and, if he misunderstood, darkened, or perverted what he found in the Bible, he uniformly says, there is my doctrine, and here is its authority; than which nothing can be a more simple and Christian method of proceeding. It is referring the objector from the deduction to the principle; and inviting him to examine, not only the process of the reasoner’s logic, but the truth
of the premises with which he sets out, and of the conclusions at which he arrives. How different is this appeal to the common standard of the Christian world, from the fides carbonaria f45 of such papists, or papal Protestants, as grope in voluntary darkness amidst the noonday blaze of revelation!”
Chambers, in his Dictionary, represents one tenet of Calvinism to be that God gives to man “a necessitating grace which takes away the freedom of the will.” And yet to repel this slander was one object which Calvin had in view, in writing his “Book of Scandals.” It had been also charged against Calvin, that his views of the divine sovereignty made God the author of sin. “To check the growth of these errors,” says Waterman in his life of Calvin, “and to vindicate the cause of Christ and the Reformation from reproach, Calvin published, June 1, 1544, his Instructions against the errors and fanaticism of the Anabaptists and Libertines. f46 In his
arguments against the latter, he points out, with great clearness, the nature of the divine sovereignty, its absolute exercise over man, a fallen,
depraved, but still amoral and accountable being, he exposes, with a strong hand, the absolute falsity of the libertine position, that God, as the cause of all things, is the efficient cause of evil, or author of sin. He rejects these assertions as blasphemous, while he maintains the scriptural doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God. Calvin discriminated dearly the limits which bounded the human intellect on that subject, and wisely stopped short of that duplex labyrinthus, double labyrinth, as he calls it, f47 which lies beyond the light of revelation. Neither Augustine, Calvin f48 nor Edwards, f49 who thought and wrote much concerning the sovereignty of God, will probably ever be surpassed in intellect, in acquisitions or
distinct apprehensions in the science of morals, or the doctrines of religion.
They neither ventured themselves, nor have they given license to others, but have left many warning counsels to prevent even their attempts to intrude into the secret things which belong to God.” f50
Jortin, in his second dissertation, is guilty of a similar misrepresentation of Calvinism. The learning of so distinguished a divine forbids us to ascribe to ignorance, what seems to have arisen from a less pardonable failure. He says, “they (the Calvinists) held a Synod at Deft, and established their Calvinistical decrees by cruel insolence and oppression.” And a little after, in the following anecdote, he tells us what this Calvinism was: “Two of
their (Calvinistic) divines, elated with victory, insulted a poor fellow who was a Remonstrant, and said, what are you thinking on, with that grave and woeful face? I was thinking, gentlemen, said he, of a controverted question, who was the author of sin? Adam shifted it off from himself, and laid it to his wife; she laid it to the serpent; the serpent who was then young and bashful, had not a word to say for himself; but afterwards growing older and more audacious, he went to the Synod of Dort, and there had the assurance to charge it upon God.”
Jortin proceeds to state that in England, almost all persons of any note for learning and abilities, have bid adieu to Calvinism, have sided with the Remonstrants, and have left the fatalists to follow their own opinions, f51 and to rejoice (since they can rejoice) in a religious system, consisting of human creatures without liberty, doctrines without sense, faith without reason, and a God without mercy. “This system,” continues Jortin, “so far as it relates to the eternal misery of infants for the fault of Adam, is the very fable of the wolf and the lamb.” This fable we need not repeat, as it is familiar to all the readers of AEsop.
Jortin then quotes Bernard, a father and a saint of the twelfth century, as saying “Nothing burns in hell but our own wills,” and remarks that he is highly to be commended for being the father of so good an aphorism, which is worth half his writings, and all his miracles. Now, in all this can be seen a continued misrepresentation of Calvinism; and just such as Calvin himself has again and again refuted, and branded as calumny.
It were well if all who undertake to refute or to ridicule Calvinism, would listen to the advice of bishop Horsley. In his primary charge to the clergy of the diocese of St. Asaph, he says, “Take especial care, before you aim your shafts at Calvinism, that you know what is Calvinism, and what is not; that in the mass of doctrine which of late it is become the fashion to abuse, under the name of Calvinism, you can distinguish with certainty between that part of it which is nothing better than Calvinism, and that which belongs to our common Christianity, and the general faith of the Reformed churches; lest, when you fall foul of Calvinism, you should unwarily attack something more sacred, and of higher origin. I must say,”
adds that able prelate, “that I have found great want of this discrimination in some late controversial writings on the side of the church (of England),
as they were meant to be, against the Methodists; the authors of which have acquired much applause and reputation, but with so little real knowledge of their subject, that give me the principles upon which these writers argue, and I will undertake to convict, I will not say Arminians only, and archbishop Laud, but upon these principles, I will undertake to convict the fathers of the Council of Trent of Calvinism. So closely is a great part of that which is now ignorantly called Calvinism, interwoven with the very rudiments of Christianity.”
The life of Calvin was also charged with immoralities. But this was done principally by the famous Bolsec, of whom Beza gives some account.
After he had been banished from Geneva, through the influence of Calvin and Farel, for sedition and Pelagianism, he wrote a life of Calvin, with a view to destroy the reputation of that great and good man.
The great Dr. Moulin observes, that not one of Calvin’s innumerable enemies ever carped at the purity of his life, but this profligate physician, whom Calvin had procured to be banished from Geneva, for his
wickedness and impieties. The reproach of such a man, says Middleton, was an honor to Calvin, and especially upon such an account, for as Milton truly says,
“Of some to be dispraised, is no small praise.”
The calumnies of Bolsec, however, were reiterated by other enemies, and are sometimes, even in this age, raked from the filth where truth has long since consigned them.
“One of the greatest uses,” says Middleton, “which may be drawn from reading, is to learn the weaknesses of the heart of man, and the ill effects of prejudices in points of religion. No less a person than the great cardinal Richelieu, has produced all accusation against Calvin, on the credit of Bertelier, than which none was ever worse contrived, and worse proved; though it has been adopted, and conveyed from book to book. Bertelier pretended, that the republic of Geneva had sent him to Noyon, with orders to make an exact inquiry there into Calvin’s life and character; and that he found Calvin had been convicted of sodomy; but that, at the bishop’s request, the punishment of fire was commuted into that
of being branded with the Flower-de-luce. He boasted to have an act, signed by a notary, which certified the truth of the process and condemnation. Bolsec affirms, that he had seen this act; and this is the ground of that horrid accusation. Neither Bertelier, nor Bolsec, are to be credited. If Bertelier’s act had not been suppositious, there would have been at Noyon, authentic and public testimonies of the trial and punishment in question; and they would have been published as soon as the Romish religion began to suffer by
Calvin’s means. Bertelier had no party against him in Geneva more inexorable than Calvin, who held him in abhorrence, on account of his vices. Bertelier was accused of sedition and conspiracy against the state and church: but he ran away, and, not appearing to answer for himself, was condemned, as being attainted and convicted of those crimes, to lose his head, by a sentence
pronounced against him, the sixth of August, 1555. No envoy or deputy was ever sent from Geneva on public business, who was not in a higher station than that of Bertelier; besides, there were some considerable persons at Noyon, who retired to Geneva, as well as Calvin: by whose means it was very easy to receive all the information which could have been desired, without going farther.
If what Bertelier said was true, he would have had his paper when he fled from Geneva: but it is plain he had not the commission he boasted of, after that time. But can any one believe, that, before the year 1555, when those who were called heretics durst not show themselves for fear of being burnt, a deputy from Geneva should go boldly to Noyon, to inform himself of Calvin’s life? Who will believeth that if Betrelier had an authentic act of Calvin’s infamy in 1554, he would have kept it so close, that the public should have no knowledge of it before 1557? Was it not a piece which the clergy of France would have bought for its weight in gold? ‘But why (says Bayle), do I lose time in confuting such a ridiculous romance? Nothing surprises me more than to see so great a person as cardinal de Richelieu, depend on this piece of Bertelier; and allege as his principal reason that the republic of Geneva did not undertake to show the falsehood of this piece.’ The truth is, this cardinal made all imaginable inquiry into the pretended proceedings against Calvin at Noyon, and that he discovered nothing; yet he
maintained the affirmative on the credit of Jerom Bolsec, whose testimony is of no weight in things which are laid to Calvin’s charge. Bolsec would have been altogether buried in oblivion, if he had not been taken notice of by the monks and missionaries for writing some satirical books against the Reformation. He was convicted of sedition and Pelagianism at Geneva, in 1551, and banished the territory of the republic. He was also banished from Bern: after which he went to France, where he assisted in
persecuting the Protestants, an even prostituted his wife to the canons of Autun. He was an infamous man, who forsook his order, had been banished thrice, and changed his religion four times; and who, after having aspersed the dead and the living, died in despair.
Varillas thought Bolsec a discredited author: Maimbourg rejected the infamy that was thrown upon Calvin: and Florimond de Remond owns, they have defamed him horribly. Papyrius Masso spoke very ill of Calvin, but would not venture to mention the story of the Flower-de-luce: and he called those, mean wretched scribblers, who reproached that minister with lewdness. It is not strange that cardinal de Richelieu, in one of the best books of controversy that has been published on the part of the church of Rome, should be less scrupulous and nice than Remond, Masso, and Romuald; and that he should give out, as a true matter of fact, the story of Bolsec, which began then to be laid aside by the missionaries? Richelieu intended to have reconciled both religions in France, but was prevented by death; and there was not one story which people did not believe, when it defamed him or cardinal Mazarin.”
Calvin’s political opinions have also been questioned, and variously represented, as might suit the purposes of those who sought to bring him into disrepute.
Dr. Kenny, dean of Achonry, in his “Principles and Practices of pretended Reformers,” labors to prove that Calvin was a sanguinary democrat, and the avowed champion of political principles, which are subversive of social order, and of legitimate government. What Dr. Kenny considers “a legitimate government” would be questioned by the American people, as well as by Calvin. The question of Calvin’s political principles has been
ably discussed by bishop Horsley. The subject was taken up by that learned prelate in the appendix to a sermon preached before the House of Lords, on the 30th of January, 1793. He was constrained to acknowledge that Calvin was unquestionably a republican in theory. He says that Calvin frequently declared his opinion, that the republican form, or an aristocracy reduced nearly to the level of a republic, was of all the best calculated in general to answer the ends of government. So wedded indeed was he to this notion, that he endeavored to fashion the government of all the Protestant churches upon republican principles. Calvin affirms, with his usual wisdom, that the advantages of one government over another, depend very much upon circumstances; that the circumstances of different countries, require different forms. And this is strictly true, for until a nation is prepared to appreciate the advantages of a republican form, and to use civil liberty, without abusing it, such a form can not be said to be the best for them, under such circumstances. Calvin’s political views may be fairly collected from his Commentaries on the Prophecy of Daniel.
It ought to be remarked, however, that Calvin always enjoined obedience to the powers that be; in as much as governments are ordained of God.
And so taught the apostle Paul. <451301>Romans 13:1-3. <560301>Titus 3:1.