marked by thoughts so developed and matured that its author, while he retouched and enlarged it, did not in any new edition of it, nor in any of his numerous subsequent publications retract or modify any of its primary tenets. The dedication to the king is a classic masterpiece in its style, and a noble and eloquent protest in its spirit. There were new editions in 1539-43-44-50-53-54-59; and it was translated by the author himself into French in 1541. This rare maturity of mind has struck many observers. "He never had occasion to recant," said Scaliger; and Bossuet admits that he had a better regulated mind than Luther, and that his doctrine appears to be more uniform than that of the German reformer. It may be added that he had a prodigious memory, which was tenacious without failure, and could recall without effort; and his mind was so calm, methodical, and self-poised, that after being obliged to suspend composition he could at once resume his argument without reading over what he had written before the interruption. Prior to the publication of the "Institutes," Calvin had gone to the court of the duchess of Ferrara to spend a brief period; then he went to his native place to arrange his affairs, with the resolution of returning to Basle. But the ordinary route being very dangerous, "he must needs pass through" Geneva. There he was unexpectedly discovered and arrested by the intrepid Farel, originally a French nobleman, who, after many a hard struggle, had won Geneva to the Reformation, and who boldly laid the curse of God upon Calvin if he would not on the spot become his coadjutor. The pale and youthful stranger would have passed on, but "necessity was laid upon him," and he who entered the city as a casual visitor was induced at the age of twenty-eight to make it his abode—an abode which, pregnant with immediate results, has also given it undying historic eminence.
Calvin and Farel began their work with an eagerness and a sweep which soon produced a reaction. They attempted to regulate dress and to control the fashions of private life. The fault lay in their identifying church with state, or in so incorporating them as to form a species of theocracy. The people in parties of ten swore to the reformed confession as citizens to a charter, and not as members of the church to a creed. Their orthodoxy did not amend their lives, or lead to that austere purity which their spiritual guides inculcated, expected, and exemplified. The people would not bend to the new authority, which in turn maintained its independence of all civil control. The council, without consulting Calvin and Farel, had accepted, through the influence of Berne, the resolutions of the Lausanne synod of 1537; and the pastors refused to administer the sacrament. The council resolved to prove its power, and a popular assembly convoked by its command ordered the preachers, on the 23d of April, 1538, to quit the city within two days. Calvin's brief stay in Geneva had already been signalized by the overthrow of the anabaptists, and his defeat of Caroli, a reckless opponent, who quibbled about words and forgot realities, and impugned the orthodoxy of the author of the "Institutes." Two smart tracts against popery had also been published by him.
The banished preachers retreated to Zürich, sojourning for a few weeks at Berne. They stated their case before a synod of Swiss pastors at Zürich, urged their willingness for a compromise in many things indifferent, such as the use of fonts and the observance of festivals, and obtained a favourable verdict; but the Bernese interfered, and a second edict of banishment was confirmed. Calvin next went to Basle and thence to Strasburg. He seemed to feel his banishment from Geneva as a kind of relief, since it gave him leisure for theological study. But Bucer prevailed upon him to engage in active service, and he became pastor of a congregation composed of French refugees, and occasionally lectured also in the academy. Here he put the finishing touch to the "Institutes," in a new edition published in 1539, published his elaborate "Commentary on Romans," the result of his academical prelections, and also a tract in French on the Lord's Supper. At this time he married a widow, Idelette de Bures. The portions of his correspondence in which her name occurs, his references to her, and his poignant sorrow at her death, prove that he was not, as is often supposed, a dry and callous recluse, or an incarnation of polemical dialectics; but that, amidst all his cares and labours, he was endowed with many genial susceptibilities, though he was not forward to display them, and possessed not a few elements of tenderness and affection, though he was not addicted to a fond or frequent expression of them.
Though Calvin felt the treatment which he had received a the hands of the Genevese, he had not disdainfully forgotten them. He corresponded with them, and by his powerful letters frustrated the attempt of Cardinal Sadolet, bishop of Carpentras, to bring them back to the church of Rome. But disorders had multiplied in his absence; the fate of the four syndics who had procured his exile alarmed the popular mind; for one of them had fallen and broken his neck, another had been convicted of murder and been executed, and two had been banished under a charge of treason. In the summer of 1541 a pressing invitation from the repentant people was sent to the reformer, soliciting and urging his return. He received it at Worms, and at first refused to comply, saying, there is "no place in the world which I dread so much as Geneva." But Farel and Bucer prevailed upon him to yield, so that he writes—"I offer to God my slain heart in sacrifice." He returned in September, and was received with enthusiasm alike by magistrates and populace. The council presented him with a house, and gave him eight dollars to buy a piece of cloth for a new coat.
His labours now were incessant—preaching every day on alternate weeks, teaching theology three days every week, absorbed in literary work, engaged in an extensive correspondence, maintaining repeated controversies, and battling with fierce and vindictive opponents. The work of the day was often prolonged through a large portion of the night, so that he complained that he should soon not know the appearance of the sun, not having had time to look at it for many days. The rule which Calvin again established at Geneva was very rigorous, and there was often a recoil. It comprised all the citizens, not merely those who willingly and from conviction placed themselves under it. He had high ideas of church authority and spiritual independence. The state was in no way to control the church, though the church spread its own jurisdiction over the state. He did not subject the church to the civil power, but thought that the state should aid the church in the execution of its sentences. The populace often rebelled against the curb which was so forcibly laid upon them, but the stern reformer ultimately prevailed; the council also wished to have some elements of spiritual power in their hands, but they, too, were at length obliged to succumb. The anomaly lay in this—that the Genevese consistory did not, as it might, exercise its authority only on those who on a profession of faith were admitted to the church and promised submission to it, but stretched its sway over all the inhabitants, no matter what their theoretical opinions or their general character. Calvin's rule was an imperium in imperio—inconsistent alike with the rights of individual conscience, and the general liberties of the state. But the rule at least was impartial. The consistory, consisting of six city ministers and twelve elders, met every Thursday, and exercised its powerful and uncompromising jurisdiction. Men of all classes often became refractory, some for political reasons; but there were other "libertines" to whom the freedom for which they clamoured was a cloak for licentiousness. The theocratic power triumphed, and the rebels were forced to do penance in a variety of forms. Non-attendance at church was punished by a fine, and adultery was made punishable by death; sumptuary laws of the strictest kind were enacted; brides, unless of unblemished character, were not allowed to wear wreaths; idle talk was under the cognizance of the police; gamblers were put in the pillory, and the manufacture of cards was forbidden. Those who approached the Lord's Supper without obtaining permission were punished, and those who neglected the opportunity might be banished for a year. An edict was issued that every one confined to bed with sickness for three days should give notice to the pastors. Torture was in use, though not in the trial of heretics, and witches were to be burned.
Among the enemies which Calvin encountered was a man named Pighins, who violently attacked his views of predestination, but was brought over by the reformer's reasoning contained in his reply, published in 1543. In 1551 he had to defend the same doctrine against Bolsec, once a Carmelite monk, and now settled as a physician in Geneva. According to the custom of the times Bolsec was banished, and he finally returned to the popish church, writing as his recantation a romance of slanders, which he called the life of Calvin—Histoire de la vie de Jean Calvin. Two years afterwards happened the memorable contest with Servetus. Calvin's share in this business has often been blamed, and often misunderstood. Calvin's sin was the sin of the age, for there was nearly a unanimity of opinion that heresy should
