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

Conversion is the fundamental act of the Gospel and of the Reformation. From the transformation effected in the individual the transformation of the world is destined to result. This act, which in some is of very short duration and leads readily to faith, is a long operation in others; the power of sin is continually renewed in them, neither the new man nor the old man being able, for a time, to obtain a decisive victory. We have here an image of christianity. It is a struggle of the new man against the old man—a struggle that has lasted more than eighteen hundred years. The new man is continually gaining ground; the old man grows weaker and retires; but the hour of triumph has not yet come. Yet that hour is certain. The Reformation of the sixteenth century, like the Gospel of the first (to employ the words of Christ), ‘is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened .’ 622The three great nations on earth have already tasted of this heavenly leaven. It is fermenting, and soon all the ‘lump’ will be leavened.

Table of Contents

Will the reformer whom God is now preparing for France find in Francis I. the support which Luther found in Frederick the Wise? Since his return from captivity in Spain, the king, as we have seen, appeared to yield to the influence of his sister and to the movement of the age. Slightly touched by the new breath, he sometimes listened to the sermons of the evangelicals, and read fragments of the Holy Scriptures with Margaret. One day, when the beauty of the Gospel had spoken to his heart, he exclaimed: ‘It is infamous that the monks should dare to call that heresy which is the very doctrine of God!’ But the Reformation could not please him; liberty, which was one of its elements, clashed with the despotism of the prince; and holiness, another principle, condemned his irregularities.

Opposition to popery had, however, a certain charm for Francis, whose supreme rule it was to lower everything that encroached upon his greatness. He well remembered that the popes had more than once humbled the kings of France, and that Clement VII. was habitually in the interest of the emperor. But political motives will never cause a real Reformation; and hence there are few princes who have contributed so much as Francis I. to propagate superstition instead of truth, servility instead of liberty, licentiousness instead of morality. If the Word of God does not exercise its invisible power on the nations, they are by that very defect deprived of the conditions necessary to the maintenance of order and liberty. They may shine forth with great brilliancy, but they pass easily from disorder to tyranny. They are like a stately ship, decorated with the most glorious banners, and armed with the heaviest artillery; but as it wants the necessary ballast, it drives between two extreme dangers, now dashing against Scylla, and now tossed upon Charybdis.

While Francis I. was trifling with the Reform, other powers in France remained its irreconcilable enemies. The members of the parliament, honourable men for the most part, but lawyers still, unable to recognise the truth (and few could in those days) that spiritual matters were not within their jurisdiction, did not confine themselves to judging temporal offences, but made themselves the champions of the law of the realm against the law of God. The doctors of the Sorbonne, on their part, seeing that the twofold authority of Holy Scripture and of conscience would ruin theirs, opposed with all their strength the substitution of the religious for the clerical element. ‘They inveighed against the reformers,’ says Roussel, ‘and endeavoured to stir up the whole world against them.’ 623The more the king inclined to peace, the more the Sorbonne called for war, counting its battalions and preparing for the fight. The general placed at its head was, Erasmus tells us, ‘a many-headed monster, breathing poison from every mouth.’ 624Beda—for he was the monster—taking note of the age of Lefèvre, the weakness of Roussel, the absence of Farel, and not knowing Calvin’s power, said to himself that Berquin would be the Luther of France, and against him he directed all his attacks.

Louis de Berquin, who was liberated by the king, in November 1526, from the prison into which the Bedists had thrown him, had formed the daring plan of rescuing France from the hands of the pope. He was then thirty years of age, and possessed a charm in his character, a purity in his life, which even his enemies admired, unwearied application in study, indomitable energy, obstinate zeal, and firm perseverance for the accomplishment of his work. Yet there was one fault in him. Calvin, like Luther, proceeded by the positive method, putting the truth in front, and in this way seeking to effect the conversion of souls; but Berquin inclined too much at times to the negative method. Yet he was full of love, and having found in God a father, and in Jesus a saviour, he never contended with theologians, except to impart to souls that peace and joy which constituted his own happiness.

Berquin did not move forward at hazard; he had calculated everything. He had said to himself that in a country like France the Reformation could not be carried through against the king’s will; but he thought that Francis would allow the work to be done, if he did not do it himself. When he had been thrust into prison in 1523, had not the king, then on his way to Italy, sent the captain of the guards to fetch him, in order to save his life? 625When in 1526 he had been transferred as a heretic by the clerical judges to lay judges, had not Francis once more set him at liberty? 626

But Berquin’s noble soul did not suffer the triumph of truth to depend upon the support of princes. A new era was then beginning. God was reanimating society which had lain torpid during the night of the middle ages, and Berquin thought that God would not be wanting to the work. It is a saying of Calvin’s ‘that the brightness of the divine power alone scatters all silly enchantments and vain imaginations.’ Berquin did not distinguish this truth so clearly, but he was not ignorant of it. At the same time, knowing that an army never gains a victory unless it is bought with the deaths of many of its soldiers, he was ready to lay down his life.

At the moment when he was advancing almost alone to attack the colossus, he thought it his duty to inform his friends: ‘Under the cloak of religion,’ he wrote to Erasmus, ‘the priests hide the vilest passions, the most corrupt manners, the most scandalous unbelief. We must tear off the veil that conceals this hideous mystery, and boldly brand the Sorbonne, Rome, and all their hirelings, with impiety.’

At these words his friends were troubled and alarmed; they endeavoured to check his impetuosity. ‘The greater the success you promise yourself,’ wrote Erasmus, ‘the more afraid I am.... O my friend! live in retirement; taste the sweets of study, and let the priests rage at their leisure. Or, if you think they are plotting your ruin, employ stratagem. Let your friends at court obtain some embassy for you from the king, and under that pretext leave France. 627Think, dear Berquin, think constantly what a hydra you are attacking, and by how many mouths it spits its venom. Your enemy is immortal, for a faculty never dies. You will begin by attacking three monks only; but you will raise up against you numerous legions, rich, mighty, and perverse. Just now the princes are for you; but backbiters will contrive to alienate their affection. As for me, I declare I will have nothing to do with the Sorbonne and its armies of monks.’

This letter disturbed Berquin. He read it again and again, and each time his trouble increased. He an ambassador ... he the representative of the king at foreign courts! Ah! when Satan tempted Christ he offered him the kingdoms of this world. Better be a martyr on the Grève for the love of the Saviour! Berquin separated from Erasmus. ‘His spirit,’ said his friends, ‘resembles a palm-tree; the more you desire to bend it, the straighter it grows.’ A trifling circumstance contributed to strengthen his decision.