The [Protestant] Reformation had reached Geneva in 1528, and was
adopted by the Council of this free city in 1535. In 1536 the city
gained its most distinguished teacher, John Calvin (1509-1564), a native
of Noyon, in Picardy, seventy miles northeast of Paris. He became the
ablest theologian and disciplinarian of the Protestant Reformation; and
his work, "Institutes of the Christian Religion," has been well called
"the masterpiece of Protestantism."
For commanding intellect, lofty
character and far-reaching influence, Calvin was one of the foremost
leaders in the history of Christianity. He was always poor and sickly,
severely moral and censorious (even in childhood being called by his
companions "the Accusative Case.") He was educated by his father, first
for the Catholic priesthood and then for the law. He injured his health
by studying nearly all night; and attained such proficiency in the law
as to be called to lecture to his fellow-students in the absence of the
Professor.
But Providence called him to a higher work. Deeply convicted
of sin, he sought inward peace by the Roman Catholic methods, and found
it not. Miserable and abject, with tears and cries, he was enabled to
flee to God, and throw himself upon His free mercy in Christ, and thus
he entered into rest, and joyfully testified, "We are saved by grace,
not by our merits, not by our works. Only one haven of salvation is left
for our souls, and that is the mercy of God in Christ."
He renounced
Romanism, joined the persecuted Protestants, and had to flee from Paris
(in 1533), in which city, during the next two years, "twenty-four
Protestants were burned alive, while many more were condemned to less
cruel sufferings. For more than two years he wandered a fugitive
evangelist, under assumed names, from place to place."
In l534 at
Orleans he published his first theological work (Psychopannychia), a
treatise against the Anabaptist doctrine of the sleep of the soul
between death and the resurrection. In 1536 at Basel he published the
first edition of his Institutes - his sole motive in issuing this work
being, he says, "to remove the impression that his persecuted brethren
in France were fanatical Anabaptists, seeking the overthrow of civil
order, which their oppressors, in order to pacify the displeasure of
German Lutherans, industriously propagated." The eloquent and powerful
preface was addressed to Francis I, the King of France.
The Institutes,
says Prof. Schaff, "are by far the clearest and ablest systemic and
scientific exposition and vindication of the ideas of the Reformation in
their vernal freshness and pentecostal fire. The book is inspired by a
heroic faith ready for the stake, and a glowing enthusiasm for the
saving truth of the gospel, raised to a new life from beneath the
rubbish of human additions. Though freely using reason and the fathers,
especially Augustine, it always appeals to the supreme tribunal of the
word of God, to which all human wisdom must bow in reverent obedience.
It abounds in Scripture learning thoroughly digested, and wrought up
into a consecutive chain of exposition and argument. It is severely
logical, but perfectly free from the dryness and pedantry of a
scholastic treatise, and flows on, like a Swiss river, through green
meadows and sublime mountain scenery. Greeted with enthusiasm by
Protestants, the Institutes created dismay
among Romanists, were burned at Paris by order of the Sorbonne
(Theological College), and hated and feared as the very 'Talmud' and
'Koran' of heresy.'"
In 1536 Calvin settled at Geneva, and lived there
the remainder of his life, with the exception of three years (1538 -
1541), when he was banished from the city on account of his severe
discipline (during which period he lived at Strassburg). In 1540 he
married Idelette van Buren, "the widow of an Ana-baptist preacher whom
he had converted," as the historians tell us. Their three children died
in infancy. Otherwise their married life was very happy but short,
lasting only nine years, when his wife died. He deeply lamented her, and
never married again. Calvin desired to make his church at Geneva the
model, mother and seminary of all the Reformed (or Presbyterian or
Calvinistic) Churches.
The Presbyterian polity, or church government, is
imaginarily derived, primarily from the old Jewish Sanhedrin, and
secondarily from the Greek, Roman and Anglo-Saxon Senates; but the best
authorities declare that the gradation of Session, Presbytery, Synod and
General Assembly was an invention of Calvin himself (his doctrine of
the organization of the church and of its relation to the State being
the only original feature of his system, says J. R. Green); and the
civil government already existing in Geneva and other cities (consisting
of four Councils, rising in power one above
the other) seems to have suggested the idea to him.
In Geneva were the
Little Council (or Council of 25), the Council of 60, the Council of
200, and the General Council or General Assembly of Citizens. As for the
two permanent Jewish courts called the
Lesser and the Greater Sanhedrin, the first of inferior and the second
of appellate jurisdiction, they are nowhere mentioned in the Old
Testament, but are believed by the most critical scholars to have been
derived by the Jews from the Macedonians (or Greeks) about 300 B.C. -
the very name, Sanhedrin, being, not a Hebrew, but a Greek word.
Calvin's Consistory (or Presbytery), composed of six preachers and
twelve 'laymen,' of which body he was President, exercised a most
stringent, vigilant, inquisitorial supervision, in respect to doctrine,
morals and manners, over the entire life of every inhabitant of Geneva;
not only excommunicating persons of every age and sex, but handing them
over to the civil authorities to be imprisoned, tortured or put to death
for heresies, improprieties and immoralities.
The proceedings of the
Consistory were marked by a Dionysian and Draconian severity. [In other
words, John Calvin's religious machine was an ecclesiastical tyranny,
operated by a group of fanatical, diabolical sadists.] "The prisons
became filled, and the executioner was kept busy. A child was beheaded
for striking its father and mother. Another child, sixteen years old,
for attempting to strike its mother, was sentenced to death but, on
account of its youth, the sentence was commuted; and having been
publicly whipped, with a cord about its neck, it was banished from the
city. A woman was chastised with rods for singing secular songs to the
melody of the Psalms.
A man was imprisoned and banished for reading the
writings of the Italian humanist, Poggio. Profanity and drunkenness were
severely punished; dancing, and the manufacture or use of cards, or
nine-pins, and even looking upon a dance, and giving children the names
of Catholic saints, and extravagance or eccentricity of dress, and the
dissemination of divergent theological doctrines, brought down upon the
delinquent the vengeance of the laws.
No historical student needs to be
told what an incalculable amount of evil has been wrought by Catholics
and by Protestants from a mistaken belief in the perpetual validity of
the Mosaic civil legislation, and from a confounding of the spirit of
the old dispensation with that of the new - an overlooking of the
progressive character of Divine revelation." George P. Fisher's History of Reformation. Christ and His Apostles did not Persecute
neither does the true church of Christ. [And Paul said, "If any man
hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" -Eld Wingfield,
Editor.]
The Protestant persecutions of each other, and of Catholics,
and of "Anabaptists." were derived from Rome,
and were in direct and horrid contradiction of the Protestant principle
of freedom of conscience. Calvin's condemnation and execution of the
almost "Anabapist" and the Anti-Trinitarian, Michael Servetus (1553),
though then approved by his brother Protestants [Lord, have mercy! -Eld
Wingfield, Editor.], is a sad and ineffaceable blot upon his character -
the bloody deed producing only evil, utterly condemned by the entire
spirit of the New Testament [Amen!], and by every person of to-day. It
is noteworthy that in 1537 Peter Caroli accused Calvin and Farel of
Anti-Trinitarianism (or Arianism and Sabellianism), because they would
not enforce the Athanasian Creed, and had not used the words "Trinity"
and "Person" in the Confession that they had drawn up.
In his first
residence at Geneva, Calvin had avoided using these terms, although
having no particular objection to them; as he was very indifferent to
the terminology of theology, so long as the truth was expressed. Jerome
Bolsee was imprisoned and banished from Geneva in 1551 for denying the
doctrine of predestination. Like [Martin] Luther, Calvin was, in
general, unselfish and unworldly, honest and conscientious, doing what
he believed to be right [just like Saul of Tarsus, when he was
persecuting Christians], and not seeking human applause or temporal
riches. His disciplinarian severity was induced, not by personal
animosity, but by his views of the Scriptures and of what was required
for the honor of God.
Under his iron and bloody discipline (the result
of a combination of "Church and State"), Geneva, from being one of the
most licentious places, became the most moral town in Europe. [No
wonder: all the sinners in town had either been put to death, or exiled
-Elder Wingfield, Editor.] But some of the profligate people,' hating
him with a perfect hatred, would sometimes fire off fifty or sixty shots
before his door in the night, and would set upon him their dogs, which
would tear his clothes and flesh. He received from the city a small
house and garden, with about five hundred dollars per year, and was very
generous to the needy.
In the latter part of his life he ate but one
meal a day, and sometimes went without that. He would not draw his
salary when he was too sick to work, and he refused an increase of
salary and all kinds of presents, except for the poor. Besides his
library, he left only about two hundred dollars, which he gave to his
younger brother and his children. When Pope Pius IV heard of his death,
he paid him this high compliment: "The strength of that heretic
consisted in this, that money never had the slightest charm for him. If I
had such servants, my dominion would extend from sea to sea." Like
Luther, he had a fiery temper, which was the propelling power in his
extraordinary life-work. He was a walking hospital, and the wonder is
that he showed so patient a spirit as he did. In his fifty-fifth year,
overcome with headache, asthma, fever and gravel, he yielded to his
complication of bodily infirmities.
He never complained of his physical
sufferings. Though his body was utterly feeble, and reduced almost to a
shadow, his mind retained its clearness and energy. Assembling the city
councilors, and then the ministers, around his bed, he declared that he
had lived, acted and taught honestly and sincerely, according to his
views of the word of God, never knowingly perverting the Scriptures, and
never laboring for any personal end, but only to promote the glory of
God. He thanked them for their kindness, and craved their forgiveness
for his occasional outbursts of anger. He exhorted them to humility and
to a faithful observance of the pure doctrine and discipline of Christ.
Sitting up in bed, he offered a fervent prayer for them, and took each
one by the hand, and bade him a solemn and affectionate farewell; and
they parted from him, with their eyes bathed in tears, and their hearts
full of unspeakable grief. According to his express injunction, no
monument was erected over his grave, so that the exact spot, in the
cemetery of Geneva, is unknown.
Excerpt from: History of the Church of God, By: Elders C. B. and Sylvester Hassell (Ellenwood, Ga., Old School Hymnal Co., Reprinted 1983), pp. 490-493
