Calvin's First Work in Geneva
' CHAPTER XVII. ‘ Rime. it has often been said, ‘“‘ makes a full
man; conversation a ready man, but thinking makes a great man.” Calvin, as we have seen, possessed each of these advantages in a very high degree; but being taught by the Spirit of God, he also well knew that human qualifications alone could not fit ism to preach ‘Christ crucified ;” ‘‘Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God;”’ and ‘the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom” (1 Cor. i. 28, 24, and 27),
Being settled at Geneva, he was appointed theological teacher and preacher, but the latter office he for some months declined to accept, fearing that he was not thoroughly qualified. He had often preached at Bourges and other places when much younger, without presuming to think himself a preacher, but now that he is asked to regularly fill that office, the great and solemn responsibilities of it stand before him, and he with Paul is ready to ask, ‘‘Who is sufficient for these things?” His lectures on theology he delivered in the cathedral of Geneva.
THE THEOLOGICAL TEACHER NOT A GOSPEL PREACHER.
Evidently, Calvin saw a difference between the theological teacher and the Gospel preacher. Without any special spiritual qualifications, and even without Divine grace in the heart, men of learning and of ability may deliver able lectures upon biblical and sacred literature without being Gospel ministers, And from such men the ministers of Jesus are generally as glad to learn as the builder is glad to avail himself of the help of the ladder-maker, brick-maker, labourer, etc. Yet, certainly, while the Gospel minister must be considered a theological teacher, there is a vast difference between his office and the work of the teacher above referred to.
. Does the teacher lecture upon Bible lands, the journeys of Israel, the nature and extent of the wilderness, and the giving of the law on mount Sinai? The minister, in addition to this, has to warn the sinner of the spiritual nature of the law and of his utter inability to meet its holy inflexible demands, even as he has felt the same in his own soul, like Paul, who said, ‘‘ The law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin; and the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death.” In the wilderness journeys of Israel the minister sees and preaches the type of the trial of faith through which his own soul and the souls of all the spiritual Israel of God have to pass; while manna from heaven and water from the rock exhibit to him the bread which came down from heaven (John vi. 51), and the gladdening stream from the Rock of Ages (Ps. xlvi. 4), for such as hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Does the teacher lecture upon the existence of God, His infinite holiness, power, wisdom, knowledge, immutability, ete? The minister also discourses upon all these, and yet sees God in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. He shows the way up to a holy God through Christ Jesus. The power of God, he is happy in speaking of, but tho exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, the minister of the Gospel sees to be most precious. The ixfintte wisdom of God in all His works ho admires and proclaims, but God abounding toward us in all wisdom and prudence by redemption through blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, forms a precious addition in the minister’s theological addresses.
In short, the teacher counts the number of grapes in the cluster; he discourses upon the weight, shape, and constituent parts thereof; the minister squeezes the juice into the cup of thanksgiving; he hands it to the man that is ready to perish; he drinks thereof himself and calls upon the name of the Lord. Few perhaps of God’s sent ministers are qualified theological teachers in the literal sense. ‘‘Not many wise men after the flesh are called; ” and perhaps few theological teachers are called to be Gospel ministers. Yet each have their particular part to take among the “‘all things that work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” The Divine interrogation, ‘How shall they preach except they be sent?” has reference to no human authority, but is aptly expounded thus:
“ Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, And the Spirit sends the man.”
CALVIN’S FIRST SERMON IN GENEVA.
When Calvin commenced preaching, his first sermon created such enthusiasm that multitudes followed him home to testify their gratification, and he was obliged to promise to preach again the next day, that others might have an opportunity of hearing. ‘His first labours seem to have been almost gratuitous. In the entry of the quently he returned to the Catholiv faith and distinguished himself as a persecutor of the Protestants; again he passed himself off as a convert among the Protestants, but - was by Farel detected in appropriating the proceeds of a collection for the poor. ‘Vain, fickle, insinuating, and hypocritical, Caroli’s only object seemed to be to attract public attention by any means whatever.” By his duplicity he succeeded in obtaining the ministry of Neuthatel, but insisting in a sermon on the necessity for praying for the dead he was brought before the consistory of Berne. Here his anger burst into a flame and he accused Calvin, Farel, and Viret of Arianism.
“Tt is but- a few days ago,” said Calvin, “that I dined with Caroli; I was then his very dear brother, and he told me to make his compliments to Farel. He then treated as brethren those whom he now charges as heretics, and protested that he wished always to live in brotherly love with us. But not one word did he say about Arianism. Where was then the glory of God, or the honour of the Council of Berne? If you had a single spark of true zeal or piety, would you have silently. suffered your brothers and colleagues to reject the Son of God? But supposing all this of no consequence, I demand how you know that I am infected with the Arian heresy? I believe I have given a pretty clear testimony of my faith, and that you will find no more ardent supporter than myself of the divinity of Jesus Christ. My works are in the hands of everybody. But you! What proof have you given of your faith, except, perhaps, iu taverns, or other worse places? For such are the haunts in which you have passed your time. Show us, then, the very passage on which you found your accusation; for I will wash out this infamy, and will not endure to be unjustly suspected.” Caroli was overwhelmed and alarmed, and confessed Calvin’s writings to be orthodox. At a special synod called in March to bring Caroli’s accusations to the test, he, to save further exposure, publicly confessed the immorality of his life in France; how he had dissembled in religious opinions, and even thrown into the hands of the persecutors, young men of his own acquaintance of whose conduct and principles he inwardly approved.
After this he went to Rome, and handed in a paper to the Pope in which he condemned the lives and doctrines
88 CALVIN :!
of the Reformers. The Pope received him back into the Romish church and gave him full power to exercise the functions of the priesthood. Here we have the sketch of the life of a hypocrite, and should it be asked, ‘“‘ Whatever can induce men to thrust themselves thus into company which they hate?” the answer is given by the Lord Himself (Matt. xiii. 39), ‘“The enemy that sowed them is the devil.”
DIVINE CHASTENING IN LOVINGKINDNESS.
Surely there is a lesson to learn from this mysterious yet Divine dealing. The Lord, who said to the serpent, ‘I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed” (Gen. iii. 15), also said, “Let both grow together until the harvest,” “the harvest is the end of the world” (Matt. xiii. 30, 39). In the unfathomable deeps of Jehovah’s counsels, He has so ordered that His own Spirit-taught people should be tried by indwelling sin and afflictive circumstances, tempted by the devil and persecuted by the ungodly. Jacob obtained victory by faith but halted upon his thigh. David had Joab as a thorn in the midst of all his prosperity; Paul had his thorn in the flesh, and he, being let into the secret, reveals the cause of the afflictive dispensation, saying, ‘‘ Lest I should be exalted above measure’? (2 Cor. xii. 7). Here, then, we see the cause of the wave upon wave of trial that met Calvin in his new sphere of labour. He had unparalleled success. No king nor emperor was doing so much for the real peace, liberty, and prosperity of Europe as this skilful wielder of the sword of the Spirit. Therefore the Lord, not in anger, but in lovingkindness sent the trials.
‘ois, ¢f need be, He reproves us, Lest we settle on our lees; Yet He in the furnace loves us, "Tis expressed in words like these: I am with thee, Israel, passing through the fire.
“To His church, His joy, His treasure, Every trial works for good, They are dealt in weight and measure, Yet how little understood; Not in anger, But in His dear cov’nant love.”
SUPERSTITIOUS CONSECRATION OF BELLS.
Caroli’s was not the only trial that confronted Calvin in Geneva; the registers of the city show that years before the Reformation both priests and people were alarmingly immoral. Prostitution was sanctioned by the state. It would soil our pages too much to give accounts even of some of their public games, which resembled the rites of Pagan idolaters. Where superstition abounds, vice also abounds. It ever proves itself to be the parent of corruption.
In England we sometimes hear of the consecration of church bells; this is a modification of what took place in Geneva. Bells about to be hung were carried to the font, dressed like a child to be baptized. Sponsors stood for them. They were then sprinkled with water and smeared with oil. This ceremony having been performed to consecrate them to the Virgin, they were foolishly supposed, when rung, to keep away all bad weather, ghosts, enchantments, and all evil spirits.
THE IMMORAL FRUITS OF SUPERSTITION.
These and such-like wicked absurdities a priest-ridden people are always subject to. Priest-ridden, we say, because the whole of the laws of the Papacy tend to exalt the priesthood to the place of God and to degrade and enslave the consciences of the people.
“Tf the manners of the laity were corrupt, those of the clergy were as bad or worse. The authentic documents just referred to bear frequent evidence of their profligacy. The canons of St, Peter’s, whose office conferred upon them a share in the spiritual government of the city, were particularly notorious for their misconduct. In 1530 the Genevese refused to pay them the tithes, which were so unblushingly applied to the purposes of debauchery.” *
THE LORD’S SUPPER AND THE ROMISH MASS,
A population thus corrupted could not, by any faithful Protestant minister, be admitted to the Lord’s table, neither could such things have been expected if the Scriptural order had been understood. The Lord’s supper is held by the Protestant to be a commemorative service, according to the words of Jesus, ‘‘ Do this in remembrance
* Dyer’s ‘‘ Life of Calvin,” page 77. G
90 CALVIN: HIS LIFKR AND TIMES,
of Me.’ And in memory of the one sacrifice for ain, he, “examining himself eats of this BREAD and drinks of this cup :”’ according to the word of the Holy Ghost by Paul, “ As often as ye eat this preaD and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come” (1 Cor. xi. 26-28).
This Lord’s supper, corrupted into the Romish mass, * is by the Papist received a3 the real sacrifice to wash away sin. Therefore, we find him both before and after the most atrocious crimes receiving mass at the hands of his priest. "What, indeed, can be more productive of evil? If a man wishes to commit an extensive robbery, murder his landlord, or blow up the king and parliament, what can so strengthen his purpose as to be fully persuaded that in the very act he has the favour of God. To this same thing may be traced the large amount of crime committed in all priest-ridden countries.
Calvin found it needful to excommunicate or exclude from the Lord’s table all the immoral and ungodly professors of religion. This, to the half Romish part of the population, seemed an exclusion from the only means of pardon, and the only means of freedom in their debaucheries. The exclusion, therefore, stirred up. the Libertines to almost open revolution, and Calvin and the other leading Reformers were banished for three year from Geneva..
Men naturally love sin, yet most men have a conscious insecurity under it, and some will do anything to shelter themselves in a false refuge, but none without a new heart and a new spirit will seek refuge in Christ, the only Saviour. The Papists of Geneva had a fancied refuge in this sacrament; Calvin showed the deception, and they drove him out of the city. The Jews went about to establish their own righteousness; Jesus revealed their danger, and said, ‘‘If ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins,” and they despised and rejected Him. Nothing will stir up the enmity of a deceived sinner so much as to expose his false religion by the light of Divine truth.
With a conscience void of offence, and with the felt
* This corruption, called Transubstantiation, was decreed by the Council of Placenza in 1095, before which time it was not fully cejved even by the Church of Rome, approbation of God, these men could leave Geneva. In their measure they were treading in the footsteps of their Master. ‘‘The chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus.” He was led out of the city by men of like spirit with the Genevese. He could sympathize with His servants, and comfort them in all their tribulations.