126 Readings in European History 258. Calvin on predes- tination. Church in the see of Rome and in the order of their prel- ates. We, on the contrary side, affirm both that the Church may consist of no visible form, and that the form itself is not contained in that outward splendor which they foolishly admire, but hath a far other indication, namely, the pure teaching of the word of God and the right ministration of the sacraments. . . . Thus, O King, is the venomous injustice of slanders so largely spread abroad that you should not too easily believe their reports. . . . Your mind, though it be now turned away and estranged from us, yea, even inflamed against us, yet we trust that we shall be able to recover the favor thereof. But if the whisperings of the malicious do so pos- sess your ears that there is no place for accused men to speak for themselves ; and if those outrageous furies do still, with your winking at them, exercise cruelty, with pris- oning, tormenting, mutilating, and burning, — then shall we indeed, as sheep appointed to the slaughter, be brought to all extremities, yet so that in our patience we shall possess our soul and wait for the strong hand of the Lord, which shall without doubt be present in time and stretch forth itself armed, both to deliver the poor out of affliction and to take vengeance on the despisers which now triumph with so great assuredness. The Lord, the King of kings, establish your throne with righteousness and your seat with equity, most noble King. At Basel, the tenth day before the Kalends of September [1536]. Nothing in Calvin's Institutes has made a deeper im- pression upon posterity than his uncompromising asser- tion of the doctrine of Predestination. 1 1 This is based first and foremost on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans ix. n-23. A little over a century after Calvin first issued his Institutes a great conclave of Presbyterian divines was summoned in England by the Long Parliament to formulate the doctrines of the Church. They held their sessions in Westminster Abbev for several years (1 643-1 652) and produced the so-called Westminster Confession
