History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8) - Complete Edition

BOOK I.
GENEVA AND THE FIRST HUGUENOTS.

CHAPTER I.
THE REFORMATION AND MODERN LIBERTY.

Facts alone do not constitute the whole of history, any more than the members of the body form the complete man. There is a soul in history as well as in the body, and it is this which generates, vivifies, and links the facts together, so that they all combine to the same end.

The instant we begin to treat of Geneva, which, through the ministry of Calvin, was to become the most powerful centre of Reform in the sixteenth century, one question starts up before us.

What was the soul of the Reformation of Geneva? Truly, salvation by faith in Christ, who died to save—truly, the renewal of the heart by the word and the Spirit of God. But side by side with these supreme elements, that are found in all the Reformations, we meet with secondary elements that have existed in one country and not in another. What we discover at Geneva may possibly deserve to fix the attention of men in our own days: the characteristic element of the Genevese Reform is liberty.

Three great movements were carried out in this city during the first half of the sixteenth century. The first was the conquest of independence; the second, the conquest of faith; the third, the renovation and organisation of the Church. Berthelier, Farel, and Calvin are the three heroes of these three epics.

Each of these different movements was necessary. The bishop of Geneva was a temporal prince like the bishop of Rome; it was difficult to deprive the bishop of his pastoral staff unless he were first deprived of his sword. The necessity of liberty for the Gospel and of the Gospel for liberty is now acknowledged by all thoughtful men; but it was proclaimed by the history of Geneva three centuries ago.

But it may be said, a history of the Reformation has no concern with the secular, political, and social element. I have been reproached with not putting this sufficiently forward in the history of the Reformation of Germany, where it had relatively but little importance. I may perhaps be reproached with dwelling on it too much in the Reformation of Geneva, where it holds a prominent place. It is a hard matter to please all tastes: the safest course is to be guided by the truth of principles and not by the exigencies of individuals. Is it my fault if an epoch possesses its characteristic features? if it is impossible to keep back the secular, without wronging the spiritual, element? To cut history in two is to distort it. In the Reform of Geneva, and especially in the constitution of its church, the element of liberty predominates more than in the Reforms of other countries. We cannot know the reason of this unless we study the movement which gave birth to that Reform. The history of the political emancipation of Geneva is interesting of itself; liberty, it has been said,3 has never been common in the world; it has not flourished in all countries or in all climates, and the periods when a people struggles justly for liberty are the privileged epochs of history. One such epoch occurred at the commencement of modern times; but strange to say, it is almost in Geneva alone that the struggles for liberty make the earlier decades of the sixteenth century a privileged time.

It is in this small republic that we find men remarkable for their devotion to liberty, for their attachment to law, for the boldness of their thoughts, the firmness of their character, and the strength of their energy. In the sixteenth century, after a repose of some hundreds of years, humanity having recovered its powers, like a field that had long lain fallow, displayed almost everywhere the marvels of the most luxuriant vegetation. Geneva is indeed the smallest theatre of this extraordinary fermentation; but it was not the least in heroism and grandeur, and on that ground alone it deserves attention.

There are, however, other reasons to induce us to this study. The struggle for liberty in Geneva was one of the agents of its religious transformation; that we may know one, we must study the other. Again, Calvin is the great man of this epoch; it is needful, therefore, to study the country where he appeared. A knowledge of the history of Geneva before Calvin can alone enable us to understand the life of this great reformer. But there remains a third and more important reason. I am about to narrate the history of the Reformation of the sixteenth century in the time of Calvin. Now, what chiefly distinguishes the Reformation of Calvin from that of Luther is, that wherever it was established, it brought with it not only truth but liberty, and all the great developments which these two fertile principles carry with them. Political liberty, as we shall see, settled upon those hills at the southern extremity of the Leman lake where stands the city of Calvin, and has never deserted them since. And more than this: earthly liberty, the faithful companion of divine truth, appeared at the same time with her in the Low Countries, in England, in Scotland, and subsequently in North America and other places besides, everywhere creating powerful nations. The Reformation of Calvin is that of modern times; it is the religion destined for the whole world. Being profoundly spiritual, it subserves also in an admirable manner all the temporal interests of man. It has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

The free institutions of Protestant countries are not due solely to the Reformation of Calvin: they spring from various sources, and are not of foreign importation. The elements of liberty were in the blood of these nations, and remarkable men exerted a civilising influence over them. Magna Charta is older than the Genevese Reform; but we believe (though we may be mistaken) that this Reformation has had some small share in the introduction of those constitutional principles, without which nations can never attain their majority. Whence did this influence proceed?

The people of Geneva and their great doctor have each left their stamp on the Reformation which issued from their walls: Calvin’s was truth, the people’s, liberty. This last consideration compels us to narrate the struggles of which Geneva was the theatre, and which, though almost unknown up to the present hour, have aided, like a slender brook, to swell the great stream of modern civilisation. But there was a second and more potent cause. Supreme among the great principles that Calvin has diffused is the sovereignty of God. He has enjoined us to render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s; but he has added: ‘God must always retain the sovereign empire, and all that may belong to man remains subordinate. Obedience towards princes accords with God’s service; but if princes usurp any portion of the authority of God, we must obey them only so far as may be done without offending God.’4 If my conscience is thoroughly subject to God, I am free as regards men; but if I cling to anything besides heaven, men may easily enslave me. True liberty exists only in the higher regions. The bird that skims the earth may lose it at any moment; but we cannot ravish it from the eagle who soars among the clouds.

The great movements in the way of law and liberty effected by the people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have certain relations with the Reformation of Calvin, which it is impossible to ignore.

As soon as Guy de Brès and many others returned from Geneva to the Low Countries, the great contest between the rights of the people and the revolutionary and bloody despotism of Philip II. began; heroic struggles took place, and the creation of the United Provinces was their glorious termination.

John Knox returned to his native Scotland from Geneva, where he had spent several years; then popery, arbitrary power, and the immorality of a French court made way in that noble country for that enthusiasm for the gospel, liberty, and holiness, which has never since failed to kindle the ardent souls of its energetic people.

Numberless friends and disciples of Calvin carried with them every year into France the principles of civil and political liberty;5 and a fierce struggle began with popery and the despotism, of the Valois first, and afterwards of the Bourbons. And though these princes sought to destroy the liberties for which the Huguenots shed their blood, their imperishable traces still remain among that illustrious nation.

The Englishmen who, during the bloody persecution of Mary, had sought an asylum at Geneva imbibed there a love for the gospel and for liberty. When they returned to England, a fountain gushed out beneath their footsteps. The waters confined by Elizabeth to a narrow channel, rose under her successors and swiftly became an impetuous roaring flood, whose insolent waves swept away the throne itself in their violent course. But restored to their bed by the wise hand of William of Orange, the dashing torrent sank into a smiling stream, bearing prosperity and life afar.

Lastly, Calvin was the founder of the greatest of republics. The ‘pilgrims’ who left their country in the reign of James I., and, landing on the barren shores of New England, founded populous and mighty colonies, are his sons, his direct and legitimate sons; and that American nation which we have seen growing so rapidly boasts as its father the humble reformer on the shores of the Leman.

There are, indeed, writers of eminence who charge this man of God with despotism; because he was the enemy of libertinage, he has been called the enemy of liberty. Nobody was more opposed than Calvin to that moral and social anarchy which threatened the sixteenth...