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8 THE PRESBYTERIA
Contributed
CALVIN'S SECOND STAY AT GENEVA.
By Prof. Henry E. Dosker, D. D.
The return of Calvin to Geneva had been made possible
by the return to power of the "Guillarmins," as the
party of the Reformers was called. The leaders of the
opposition were scattered.
Calvin arrived at Geneva September 13, 1541, and was
received "with the greatest joy," as Beza tells us. He
was at once received by the Council, who presented
him with a new cloak, and straightway plunged into
the work of reconstruction. A house and small garden
were given him, with a salary of 500 florins (hard to
be estimated in present day value), and supplies of
wine and grain. It was enough for his simple needs.
His wife and children were brought from Strasburg
and his true life work began.
An "ecclesiastical constitution" was drawn up by a
competent commission, and was finally approved by the
General Assembly of the city in November, 1541. Calvin's
legal training now stood him in excellent stead.
Provision was made for the full organization of the
Church and its discipline, and for the mutual relation
between the Church and the State.
Under Calvin's judicious and patient leadership, complete
peace with Bern was, after much wrangling, establichp/1
T?oKrfi /> T - 1 *1
i vuiuai^ 1^44, ana tnus a serious obstacle to
the success of the Genevan reformation was removed.
The hated exile of 1538 became the practical leader of
Geneva, after 1541, although he did not accept its citizenship
till 1559.
There is no record that Calvin was ever formally
ordained as pastor. His life from 1541 to 1564, when
God took him, was a strenuous one indeed. In all that
time he was never without opposition, except perhaps
towards the very last. He was opposed from within
and without, and till 1555 continually in danger of death.
nvery dark corner had its gruesome possibilities.
Here is not the place to draw a picture of Calvin
as a man, nor can we, in a brief popular article, enter
into the details of these momentous years of struggle.
Suffice it to say that the old consistorial powers were at
once employed with a steady hand to heal the festering
wounds of Geneva. With Calvin, church discipline
was more than an ideal, it was a matter of life and death.
The gay and turbulent populace of immortal Geneva
were suddenly thrust into a strait-jacket of the new
laws. They had, in open assembly, willingly accepted
the new constitution, and Calvin held them rigidly to
it. Dancing, gaming, theater-going, ribald songs, boisterous
conduct, disrespect to the ministry were forbidden,
on pain of punishment. Church attendance, on
Sunday as well as on week days, the calling of the
pastors to attend the sick, within three days, household
worship, etc., were strictly enjoined. Blasphemy and
utciiiiuusness were severely punished.
Can one wonder that the old Genevese tired in a
brief time of a life so sternly pious and restricted? And
the great burden of the unequal struggle was laid on
the shoulders of Calvin alone. How bitterly he complains
in those early days of the inefficiency and sloth
of his co-pastors! Not till 1545 did Calvin feel the
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strength of the full support of the ministry of Geneva;
not till then was it purged of all elements of opposition.
Innumerable were the conflicts which the great but
human leader sustained in those years of burden bearing.
His personal antagonists were legion. I can only
touch on one or two of these conflicts.
He has been bitterly blamed for the death of Gruct,
July 26, 1547. The opposition of the Libertines to
Calvin had then fully developed. Gruet was suspected
of having DOSted a threatening nlocir/1
^ 4 ? jyiuvt^i u at^xiJH31 IIIC millisters
on the very pulpit of St. Peter's, Calvin's own
church. He was accused of blasphemy; and incriminating
extracts of a book, supposed to have been written
by him, were proved to be circulating among the Libertinistic
families. He was condemned and executed
under the prevailing laws. But after his death, under
the rafters of his house the manuscript of his book was
found. Henry says of it: "What are all the antiChristian
writings of the French Revolution compared
with the hellish laughter, which seemed to peal from its
pages?" The offense, for which he died*, was as nothing
compared to the greater one he committed.
Above all his antagonists towers the menacing face
of Servetus and the fact of his lamentable death in 1553.
1 frankly say that Calvin never showed himself so human.
so oathetirallv lmmon 00 1 1 " -
r_ j *^wi, c?o in LiiaL mu inai. out nc
never was a hypocrite. As he saw the case, the glory
of God was at stake in it. Always willing to forgive
personal injuries and insults, lie flamed up in bitter
wrath when the honor of the Divine Majesty was
touched. And Servetus blasphemed, as no man had
done before him. Look at the different attitude of
Calvin to the older Socinus, also an anti-trinitarian, but
a reverent one! It was the blatant blasphemy of Servetus
that touched Calvin to the quick, and extreme bias
pnemy in oeneva, even under the old law, meant death.
Life was sadly cheap in the sixteenth century, and
true religious liberty was wholly unknown, even among
the best. Servetus came to Geneva apparently at the
instigation of the Libertines. Gueroult, one of the
party, but banished from Geneva, had been the proofreader
of the incriminating work of Servetus?"The
Restoration of Christianity." In the trial of Servetus
the Libertines played their last card, and they played
for a heavy stake. They lost and Servetus lost with
them. Calvin triumphed. The Swiss churches, whose
judgment Servetus himself had invoked, spoke against
him. Even Melanchthon sanctioned his death.
Servetus died. Could Calvin have finally prevented!
it? We doubt it. But in any case we are not ready
to sanction the "expiatory monument," erected at Ge*neva,
by Calvin's so-called friends in 1902. To do so
would be to sanction an anachronism. Calvin did not
stand above the level of his day. We admit it as a
truism.
His long struggle with the Libertines was practically
ended, with the resolution of the Council to leqve the
right of excommunication in the hands of the Consistory
in 1554. It actually ended with the fiasco of
the attempt to exterminate the French refugees in
Geneva in May, 1555, and the consequent collapse of
the party. From that day Calvin could breathe more
freely, and yet there was no rest for him. He was never
without opposition; to speak of him as the "dictator""