J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8)

685'Utile et necessarium certa verborum forma uti, in sacra scriptura non expressa.'— Facult. Theol. Paris. Resp. p. 82.

686'Non petunt boni ut monasteria deleantur, sed ut sint scholæ.'—Script. a Gallis ed., Corp. Ref. ii. p. 773.

687 Facultatis Theologiæ Parisiensis Responsum. Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. renov. p. 76.

688'In tanta sacerdotum et monachorum turba restitui aliter vitæ puritas non poterit.'—Scriptum a Gallis editum, Corpus Reformatorum , ii. p. 774.

689'Hoc fermentato sæculo.'—Ibid.

690'Perfacile autem coalescere possumus.'—Ibid.

691 Facultatis Theologiæ Parisiensis Responsum. Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. renov. p. 77.

692Including the apocryphal books.

693 Facultatis Theologiæ Parisiensis Responsum. Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. renov. iv. App. p. 77.

694Du Bellay, Mémoires , ed. Petitot, Introd. p. 123. Schmidt, Hist. Theol. p. 36 (ed. 1850).

695'England und Ich pflegen zusammen zu halten und sämmtlich unsere Sachen vornehmen.'—Rex Galliæ ad principes protest. Corp. Ref. ii. p. 830.

696'Quam pulchre staremus.'—Sturm to Melanchthon, MS.

697Ibid.

698'Neque bonus ullus erit, qui reclamet in pontificis monarchiam.— Corp. Ref. ii. p. 762.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

THE Reformation was necessary to christian society. The Renaissance, daughter alike of ancient and of modern Rome, was a movement of revival, and yet it carried with it a principle of death, so that wherever it was not transformed by heavenly forces, it fell away and became corrupted. The influence of the humanists—of such men as Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, and afterwards of Montaigne—was a balmy gale that shed its odours on the upper classes, but exerted no power over the lower ranks of the people. In the elegant compositions of the men of letters, there was nothing for the conscience, that divinely appointed force of the human race. The work of the Renaissance, had it stood alone, must of necessity, therefore, have ended in failure and death. There are persons in these days who think otherwise: they believe that a new state of society would have arisen without the Reformation, and that political liberty would have renewed the world better than the Gospel. This is assuredly a great error. At that time liberty had scarcely any existence in Europe, and even had it existed, and the dominion of conscience not reappeared along with it, it is certain that, though powerful enough, perhaps, to destroy the old elements of order prevailing in society, it would have been unable to substitute any better elements in their place. If, even in the nineteenth century, we tremble sometimes when we hear the distant explosions of liberty, what must have been the feeling in the sixteenth? The men who were about to appear on the theatre of the world were still immersed in disorder and barbarism. Everything betokened great virtues in the new generation, but also tumultuous passions; a divine heroism, but also gigantic crimes; a mighty energy, but at its side a languishing insensibility. A renewed society could not be constituted out of such elements. It wanted the divine breath to inspire high thoughts, and the hand of God to establish everywhere the providential order.

At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, society was in a state of excitement. The world was in suspense, as when the statuary is about to create a work that shall be the object of universal admiration. The metal is melted, the mass flows from the furnace like glowing brass; but the approaching lava alarms, and not without reason, the anxious spectators. At this period we witness struggles, insurrections, and reaction. The perfumed spirit of the Renaissance was unable to check the evil and to establish order and liberty. Society had appeared to grow young again under the breath of antiquity; but wherever a knowledge of the Gospel was not combined with the cultivation of letters, that purity, boldness, and elevation of youth, which at first had charmed contemporaries, disappeared. The melting was checked, the metal grew cold, and instead of the masterpiece that had been expected, there appeared the repulsive forms of servility, immorality, and superstition.

=CRISIS AND MEANS OF SALVATION.=

Was there any means of preventing so fatal a future? How, in the midst of the old society, which was crumbling to pieces, could a new one be formed, with any certain prospect of vitality? In religion only the coming age was to find its living force. If the conscience of man was awakened and sanctified by christianity, then and then only the world would stand.

Was it possible to look for this regenerating element in the society which was expiring? That would be to search among the dead for the principle of life. It was necessary to have recourse to the primitive sources of faith. The Gospel, more human than literature, more divine than philosophy, exerts an influence over man that these two things cannot possess. It goes down into the depths—that is, into the people—which the Renaissance had not done; it rises towards the high places—that is, towards heaven—which philosophy cannot do. When the Gospel lifted up its voice in the days of the Reformation, the people listened. It spoke to them of God, sin, condemnation, pardon, everlasting life—in a word, of Christ. The human soul discovered that this was what it wanted; and was touched, captivated, and finally renewed. The movement was all the more powerful because the doctrine preached to the people had nothing to do with animosities, traditions, interests of race, dynasties, or courts. True, it got mixed up with these things afterwards; but in the beginning it was simply the voice of God upon earth. It circulated a purifying fire through corrupted society, and the new world was formed.

The old society, whose place was about to be occupied, did all in its power to resist the light. A terrible voice issued from the Vatican; a hand of iron executed its behests in many a country, and strangled the new life in its cradle. Spain, Italy, Austria, and France were the chief theatres of the deplorable tragedies, whose heroes were Philip II. and the Guises. But there were souls, we may even say nations, protected by the hand of God, who have been ever since like trees whose leaves never wither. 699Intelligent men, struck by their greatness, have been alarmed for the nations that are not watered by the same rivers. Against such a danger there is, however, a sure remedy; it is that all people should come and drink at those fountains of life which have given protestant nations 'all the attributes of civilisation and power.' 700Or do they perchance imagine that by shutting their windows against the sun, the light will spread more widely?... A new era is beginning, and all lingering nations are now invited to the great renovation of which the Gospel is the divine and mighty organ.

=NEW SITUATION OF GENEVA.=

In 1526 Geneva was in a position which permitted it to receive the new seed of the new society. The alliance with the cantons, by drawing that city nearer to Switzerland, facilitated the arrival of the intrepid husbandmen who brought with them the seeds of life. At Wittemberg, at Zurich, and even in the upper extremities of Lake Leman, in those beautiful valleys of the Rhone and the Alps which Farel had evangelised, the divine sun had poured down his first rays. When the Genevans made their alliance with the Swiss, they had only thought of finding a support to their national existence; but they had effected more: they had opened the gates of day, and were about to receive a light which, while securing their liberties, would guide their souls along the path of eternal life. The city was thus to acquire an influence of which none of its children had ever dreamt, and by the instrumentality of Calvin, one of the noblest spirits that ever lived, 'she was about to become the rival of Rome,' as an historian says (perhaps with a little exaggeration), 'and wrest from her the dominion of half the christian world.' 701