CCCXXXIX.—To a Seigneur of Jersey.[471]

Christian exhortations—sending of a minister.

[1553.]

Dearest Seigneur and brother,—We praise God for having inclined your heart to try if it will be possible to erect, by your means, a small church on the place where you reside. And indeed according as the agents of the Devil strive by every act of violence to abolish the true religion, extinguish the doctrine of salvation, and exterminate the name of Jesus Christ, it is very just that we should labour on our side to further the progress of the gospel, that, by these means, God may be served in purity, and the poor wandering sheep may be put under the protection of the sovereign Pastor to whom every one should be subject. And you know that it is a sacrifice well pleasing to God, to advance the spread of the Gospel by which we are enlightened in the way of salvation, to dedicate our life to the honour of him who has ransomed us at so costly a price in order to bear rule in the midst of us. Therefore we pray you to take courage, as we supplicate at the same time the Father of all virtue to confirm you in your holy purpose. Meanwhile, because we have heard that you desire to be assisted by us, and to have a man proper for the work of edification, we have not wished to be a wanting to our duty. We present to you then our brother, the bearer of this letter, who has shewn us by deeds by what zeal he was animated. He has had such a conversation among us that we doubt not but that his life will be an excellent example. His doctrine is pure, and as far as we can judge, those who will content themselves with being taught by him in simplicity, and will shew themselves docile, will be able to profit by his preaching. We do not beg you to give him a kind welcome, being convinced of your favourable dispositions. Only deign to let him feel by experience that his labour among you is not in vain.

Whereupon, dearest Seigneur and brother, having affectionately commended us to your prayers, we will supplicate the heavenly Father to continue to have you in his holy keeping, to increase in you his spiritual gifts, to govern you in such a manner by his Spirit, that his name may be more and more glorified in you.

[Fr. copy.—Library of Geneva. Vol. 107.]

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The minister, Louis de Geniston, following the noble example of Pierre Blanchet, cut off by the plague in 1543, had, of his own accord, offered himself for the service of the hospital set apart for those afflicted with the plague. He fell under it, a victim of his devotedness, in September 1545. His wife and two of his children were carried off a few days afterwards by the scourge, which almost wholly depopulated several quarters of the city.

[7] There exists (Imp. Lib. Recueil Hist., de France, vol. xix.) a piece entitled Lepida Farelli Vocatio. In that letter Calvin vigorously urges his friend to repair to Geneva, by calling to mind the religious violence with which he was himself detained there, by the voice of Farel, at the time of his first entrance into that city in 1536. "Do you expect that I should thunder as you were wont to do, when you wished forcibly to draw me hither?" The urgencies of Calvin were fruitless, and the Church of Neuchatel retained, for twenty years longer, the services and the indefatigable activity of Farel.

[8] The plague had dispersed the regents and students of the College of Geneva, and Calvin was labouring at the re-organization of that establishment. He had already proposed to the Council, in March 1545, to call to Geneva the celebrated Maturin Cordier, as president of the regents; but this proposal ended in nothing, and Maturin Cordier remained at Lausanne.

[9] Farel was then at strife with the Seigneury of Neuchatel, on the subject of the administration of ecclesiastical property.

[10] Rebuked on the ground of his morals, this minister had been banished to a country parish, and having refused to submit to the entire Consistory, he had received his dismissal.

[11] Minister of the Church of Geneva; deposed, a few years afterwards, on account of the irregularities of his life.

[12] Alarmed at the first movements of the Council of Trent, and the perils to which the good understanding between the Pope and the Emperor might subject the Reformation, the Deputies of the League of Smalkald had reassembled at Frankfort. But their union was not so solid as the gravity of the occasion demanded. The Elector of Saxe and the Landgrave of Hesse were influenced by different political views; but they were both alike disposed to seek the alliance of the Kings of France and England, as well as of the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, that they might withstand the storm that menaced them.—Sleidan, l. xvi., and Robertson, vol. iv. B. vii. p. 234. London, 1851.

[13] "Upon the intelligence that the Duke of Savoy has retaken two strongholds in Piedmont, and that he is collecting a body of troops, resolved to continue to work at the fortifications."—Registers of Council, 28th December 1545.

[14] "Oath exacted of all private individuals, of fidelity to the Seigneury, and of their readiness to live and die for liberty."—Registers of Council, 7th January 1546.

[15] The Seigneurs of Berne, eagerly seeking every opportunity of establishing their influence at Geneva, had offered to guard the city, and to protect it against all foreign attacks. This proposal was discarded, as tending to compromise the independence of the Republic.—Registers of Council, 11th January 1546.

[16] We read, in the Registers of Council of the 29th of January of this year:—"Calvin having been ill, the Seigneury present to him ten crowns. On his recovery, he returns the money to the Council, who cause it to be expended in the purchase of a tun of wine for him, thus leaving him no alternative but to accept it."

[17] Calvin had just dedicated to M. de Falais his Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. The epistle dedicatory is of the 22d January 1546. The name of M. de Falais—sad example of the fragile nature of human affections!—was effaced ten years afterwards from the preface of this Commentary, and replaced by the name of the Marquis of Vico.

[18] On the back, in the hand of M. de Falais—'Received the 6th February 1546.'

[19] Printer in Strasbourg.

[20] The French were then besieging the town of Boulogne, occupied by the English. The peace between the two rival monarchs of France and England, was signed the year following.—De Thou, lib. i. ii.

[21] The following is the address of this letter, taken from the original in the archives of the old Archbishopric of Vienne, and first published by the Abbé d'Artigny,—A Sire Jéhan Frellon, marchand libraire demeurant à Lyon, en la rue Mercière, enseigne de l'Escu de Coulongne. The mysterious personage who is pointed at in this letter, is no other than Michael Servetus—seven years before the trial which was to attach so fatal a celebrity to his name. Settled as a physician at Vienne, in Dauphiny, he kept up a correspondence with Calvin, under the cover of John Frellon, and he had just sent the Reformer an extract of the work which was in preparation under the title of Christianismi restitutio, expressing at the same time the desire of coming to Geneva. Then it was, that Calvin wrote to Farel the letter which has been so often cited, where this passage occurs, "Servet has lately written to me, and has added to his letter a large volume of his own delirious fancies.... If it may be agreeable to me, he undertakes that he would come hither. But I will not interpose my assurance of his safety, for if he shall come, provided that my authority is of any avail, I shall not suffer him to depart alive."*—Letter of the 13th February 1546. We know how that terrible threat was realized seven years afterwards.

*Servetus nuper ad me scripsit, ac literis adjunxit longum volumen suorum deliriorum... Si mihi placeat, huc se venturum recipit. Sed nolo fidem meam interponere, nam si venerit, modo valeat mea authoritas, vivum exire non patiar.

[22] Decimated by the most cruel persecution, the faithful of Dauphiné, the native country of Farel, had inquired of the ministers of French Switzerland, whether it was lawful for them to have recourse to flight, in order to escape the fury of their adversaries. Numerous refugees had already settled at Geneva.—See vol. i. p. 473.

[23] Ecclesiastical embroilments with the Seigneury of Berne.

[24] See letter of the 26th January, p. 28, note 2.

[25] See the preceding letter. It appears that relations between Calvin and Servetus continued in a state of interruption, as is proved by the following passage of a letter of Calvin to Viret, dated 1st September 1548:—"I think I once read to you my answer to Servetus. I was at length disinclined from striving longer with the incurable obstinacy of a heretic; and, indeed, I ought to have followed the advice of Paul. He now attacks you. You will see how long you ought to persist in rebutting his follies. He will twist nothing out of me henceforward."—Library of Geneva, Vol. 106.

[26] One of the most violent members of the party that combated the influence and institutions of the Reformer at Geneva.

[27] Calvin shewed himself, on more than one occasion, disposed to forgive personal injuries, as the Registers of Council testify:—"A woman having abused M. Calvin, it is directed that she be consigned to prison. Liberated at the request of the said M. Calvin, and discharged with a reproof."—12th December 1545.

[28] See p. 22, note 2.

[29] Allusion to the Bernese and to their pretensions of ruling Geneva under cover of the Alliance.—See p. 28, note 2.

[30] The year 1546 was especially remarkable for the great persecutions that arose within the bounds of the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Paris. Meaux, Seulis, Orleans, reckoned numerous martyrs. One named Jean Chapot of Dauphiné, colporteur of Geneva, arrested at Paris, was condemned to death, after having undergone the most cruel tortures. He had his tongue cut out before he was cast into the flames. "The dispersion," says Beza, "was widespread, but it led to the great advancement of many churches which were built up of the stones of that ruin."—Hist. Eccl. tom. i. p. 82. Histoire des Martyrs, pp. 170, 177.

[31] Francis I., King of France.

[32] On the death of the minister Chaponneau, the people of Neuchatel wished to have in his room Christopher Fabri, minister of Thonon: they accordingly asked him from the Seigneury of Berne, who with a good grace conceded him to them.—Ruchat, vol. v. p. 299.

[33] We again find marks of the same solicitude in a letter of Calvin to Viret of the preceding month. "Adieu, with your wife, whose health we will commend to the Lord. Be assured that we are not less solicitous about her than if she were the wife or daughter of each of us. The Lord keep you and sustain you with the consolation of his Spirit."—(January 1546,) Vol. 106, from Geneva.

[34] Viret was at that time plunged into the deepest affliction. He had just lost, after a long illness, his wife, Elizabeth Turtaz, of Orbe, with whom he had lived for many years in a godly union. The grief which he felt on that occasion is expressed, in a very touching manner, in a letter written many years afterwards to Calvin:—"I was so completely dispirited and prostrated by that arrow of affliction, that the whole world appeared to me nothing but a burden. There was nothing pleasant, nothing that could mitigate my grief of mind."—Calv. Epist. et Resp., p. 53. The friends of Viret, and especially Farel and Calvin, lavished upon him, during that trial, marks of the tenderest and most brotherly affection. The familiar correspondence of Calvin furnishes us with precious revelations in this respect.

[35] Nephew of Viret, and minister in the Pays de Vaud.

[36] To the most honourable Doctor Theodore Vitus, most faithful Minister of Christ at Nuremberg.

Theodore Vitus, (Dietrich de Weit,) a distinguished theologian, friend of Luther and Melanchthon, preached the Gospel with great success in the city of Nuremberg, his native place, and was worthy of the esteem and affection of Calvin, not more on account of his learning than his moderation. He died in 1549. Melanchthon wrote, at the foot of his portrait, the following verses:

Ingenii monumenta sui, sed plura Lutheri
Edidit; his poterunt secla futura frui.

—[Melch. Adam, Vitæ Theol. Germ. pp. 199, 200.]

[37] The following is the passage of the letter of Vitus to Calvin to which he here refers:—"I have read your short address to the people on the Sacrament of the Supper, and I approve of your calling the bread and wine signs in such a sense that the things signified are in reality present. Would that they who leave only the naked signs, might be led by you to adopt that view!"—Calv. Epist. et Resp., Amst., p. 37.

[38] This desire was happily realized some years afterwards, by the adoption of a common symbol on the Supper, approved alike by the theologians of Zurich and Geneva.

[39] Vitus lent useful aid to Luther in the revision of his different writings, and rendered a real service to the Church by collecting and offering to the public the Commentaries of Luther on the Prophet Micah, and the first eleven chapters of Genesis.—Melch. Adam, Vitæ Theol. Germ.

[40] The Conference opened by the Emperor at Ratisbon, and to which Bucer had been summoned, was a mere feint to divert men's minds, and to transfer the decision of the points at issue to the Council of Trent.

[41] Viret, yielding to the entreaties of Calvin, went to Geneva towards the end of March, and there received the most honourable marks of public affection. We read in the Registers of Council, of date the 2d April 1546,—"Grand reception given to Farel and Viret, who had just arrived at Geneva."

[42] On the back, in the handwriting of M. de Falais,—Received the 16th of April 1546.

[43] A new diet had been assembled at Ratisbon, for the pacification of the religious troubles of Germany. That assembly opened in the month of June 1546, in presence of the Emperor, and like those which had preceded, concluded without any result whatsoever.

[44] The Protestants of this town, feebly supported by the league of Smalkald, and intimidated by the presence of the imperial legate, devoted to the Roman Catholic clergy, had already lost the rights which had been guarantied to them by the accord of 1543, and so found themselves deprived of the exercise of public worship and of the pastorate.—(See a letter of Myconius to Calvin, 13th November 1543. Calv. Epist. et Responsa, Amst. p. 26.)

[45] In the year 1546, the Palatinate witnessed the accomplishment of a great religious revolution. The Elector, Frederic II., yielding to the wish of his subjects, proclaimed the establishment of the Reformation, and the abolition of the old worship in his states. The chief instrument of that revolution was the minister Paul Fagius, the disciple of Capito.—Sleidan, Comment. lib. xvi. p. 266. De Thou, lib. ii. c. 3.

[46] The French Church of Strasbourg, of which Calvin had been pastor during his exile from Geneva.

[47] Introduced by Calvin to Myconius, Ochino made but a very short stay at Bâle, where those writings made their appearance which have been such a blot upon his memory. In 1545 he went to Augsbourg, where he became minister to the congregation of Italian refugees until the epoch of the Interim, which was the cause of his betaking himself to England. His leanings toward heterodoxy were veiled from the eyes of every one, except perhaps the clear-sighted discernment of Calvin, who valued his abilities, without having an entire confidence in the solidity of his doctrines. The ever-recurring changes of his unsettled life led him, at a later period, to class himself with the sect of the anti-Trinitarians. His discourses, so much admired by Cardinal Bembo, and the Emperor Charles V. himself, are less remarkable for their purity of doctrine than for the warmth of feeling and the poetical flash of the style. They have been printed under the following title: Prediche di Messer Bernardino Ochino, 1543, and reprinted on several occasions; but we are not aware of any translation, whether Latin or French. See Schelhorn, Ergötzlichkeiten, tom. iii. pp. 2022, 2161, 2166, and pp. 2174-2179.

[48] The sisters of M. de Falais.

[49] Juan Diaz, originally of Cuença, in Spain, studied letters at the University of Paris, and was distinguished, amid the scholars of his nation, "by superior learning, adorned with pure morals, great mildness, prudence, and benignity." Initiated in the knowledge of the Gospel, he left Paris and visited Geneva, Bâle, Strasbourg, where he acquired the friendship of Bucer, whom he accompanied into Germany. The Jesuit, Malvenda, a stout defender of Popish idolatry, having made vain efforts to lead him back to the Romish Church, the adversaries of Juan Diaz planned a most detestable conspiracy against his life, and, on the 27th of March, he was assassinated by order of Alphonso Diaz, his own brother, who had come from Rome in order to the accomplishment of this execrable outrage, the instigator of which remained unpunished.—See the record of this odious fratricide in Sleidan, and Histoire des Martyrs, pp. 162, 168; and Letter CLXIII.

[50] Calvin had this year a child by his wife, Idelette de Bure, which died in the birth.

[51] At the request of M. de Falais, Calvin had prepared an apology for his Lordship, which was to be presented to the Emperor at the Diet of Ratisbon. This memorial, drawn up at first in French, then translated into Latin, and along with a profession of faith, containing valuable details for the history of M. de Falais, has the following title:—Apology of the very Illustrious Lord James of Burgundy, of Falaise, and of Breda, wherein he has wiped away the accusations wherewith he has been branded in the sight of the Imperial Majesty, and sets forth the Confession of his Faith. This morceau has been published by the Amsterdam editor at the end of the letters of Calvin to M. de Falais.

[52] M. de Falais had five brothers. Those alone of whom mention is made in the letters of Calvin, are John, Seigneur de Fromont, and Peter, Pronotary apostolic, who had embraced the Reformation.

[53] Alphonso d'Avalos, Marquis of Guasto, governor of the Milanese, and one of the ablest generals of Charles the Fifth. He died in 1546.

[54] The Emperor, in 1544, had undertaken a disastrous expedition against the town of Argiers. The military movements which were then going forward in Italy, were intended to cover his real projects of attack against the Protestant princes of Germany.

[55] See the following letter.

[56] The Ecclesiastical Ordinances, digested by Calvin and adopted by the councils of the republic, daily encountered the keenest opposition in the heart of a party which reckoned at its head men belonging to the most distinguished families among the Genevese. The Consistory and Councils together took care that the laws were rigidly enforced, and checked improprieties without respect of persons. The Captain-General, Amy Perrin, the Syndic Corna, and several other persons, having, contrary to the prohibitions, danced in a private house, "It is ordained," as is contained in the Registers of 12th April 1546, "that they all be imprisoned;" and with regard to the wife of Amy Perrin, who spoke insolently to the Consistory, that she also be imprisoned, and be required to find security. Perrin, to avoid undergoing the punishment pronounced against him, had recourse to the pretext of a journey to Lyons; but he was incarcerated on his return. The Syndic Corna acknowledged his fault, and, after a deposition of some days, he was reinstated in his office. The minister, Henry de la Mare, was deposed, for having been present at the ball, and taken the side of the dance and dancers against the Consistory. See Registers of Council, April 1546.

[57] At the head of the opposition to the ministers were observed the different members of the family of Francis Favre, a dissolute old man, and father-in-law of Amy Perrin. Francisca, his daughter, wife of the latter, made herself remarkable by the violence of her invectives against the Consistory. "They remonstrated with her, and made no more account of herself and her father than of the lowest in the city. Being again interrogated whether she would name the dancers, twice replied, that she would rather submit to punishment, and be dragged before all the justices, than appear before the Consistory."—Notes Extracted from the Registers of the Consistory of Geneva, by the late Syndic Cramer, 4te, 1853.

[58] "That the father-in-law of Amy Perrin, who has committed adultery, be also imprisoned, and put upon his trial."—Registers of Council. Ibid.

[59] See the whole of this narrative in the Histoire des Martyrs, from the tract of Claude de Senarclens: Vera Historia de Morte Joannis Diazii Hispani. 1546.

[60] Letter without date, of which the original French is lost. It is here reproduced from the Latin translation inserted in the collection of the published Latin letters of Calvin, with restoration of date, April 1546.

Amy Perrin, one of the earliest hearers of Farel and Froment at Geneva, contributed powerfully to the disenthralment and reformation of his native country. At one with the Reformers in the abolition of the ancient worship and in the proclamation of the new, which he regarded as the security for the independence of Geneva, he broke with them the moment they undertook to correct manners, after having reformed beliefs. He then became the head of that party of undisciplined children of Geneva, "who wished to live according to their own inclination, without suffering themselves to be restrained by the words of the preachers," and whose triumph led to the banishment of the ministers, (1538.) Commissioned, two years afterwards, to negotiate their recall, he appeared to be reconciled to Calvin, and to submit to the institutions of the Calvinistic discipline; but the submission could not be lasting, and we again find him, in 1545, along with Pierre Vandel and the two Bertheliers, at the head of the party that must needs continue to strive with the ministers, until their total defeat, (May 1555.) Of an irascible temperament, of easy and frivolous manners, Amy took pleasure in fêtes, and in appearing in public magnificently dressed. Being accused (see the preceding letter) of having taken part in unlawful dances, he refused to compear before the Consistory, incurred, with his wife, the just rigours of the Seigneury, and became the implacable enemy of Calvin, who, in a letter at once moderate and powerful, essayed in vain to bring him back to the path of obedience and duty.

[61] Menaced by a common peril, and having equally to resist the pretensions of Charles V. to universal rule, the King of France and the Protestant Princes of Germany had resumed negotiations, that must seemingly issue in a lasting treaty. This treaty of alliance was for long the object of the prayers and the hopes of Calvin, who reckoned upon extracting from it advantageous results to the French Protestants, and an implicit toleration for churches until then subjected to the most violent persecutions. He pressed Farel and Viret, one or other, to repair to Germany, to hasten the progress of negotiations and determine the conditions of the alliance.

[62] Is this Uzés a small town of Languedoc, now comprised in the department of Gard? Beza and the historian of the martyrs furnish us with no information on this point.

[63] Desirous of rendering assistance to Calvin during his illness and recovery, the Seigneurs of Geneva decided upon allowing him an attendant at the public expense.—Registers of Council, 4th March 1546.

[64] Viret was on the point of repairing to Berne, in order to discuss certain matters relative to the ordinances of the Reformation in the Pays de Vaud.—Ruchat, vol. v. p. 298.

[65] After the disgrace of the Chancellor Poyet, this high office was filled by François Olivier, Seigneur of Louville, President of the Parliament of Paris. He resigned in 1550, and again became Chancellor in 1559, in order to give his sanction to the lamentable executions of Amboise, which he survived only for a short time.

[66] On the back, in the handwriting of M. de Falais: "Received the 22d July." This note, taken in connection with the beginning of the next letter to M. de Falais, settles the date of the present one.

[67] M. de Falais was at the time dangerously ill.

[68] Certain persons having obtained from the magistrate permission to act in public a Morality, entitled, The Acts of the Apostles, which had received the approbation of the ministers; one of them, named Michael Cop, less conciliatory than his colleagues, preached a very violent discourse in the church of St. Peter, and said that the women who should mount the theatre to act that farce, would be shameless creatures. These words stirred up a great tumult in the city, and Calvin required to put forth all his influence to quiet the agitation, and to preserve the life of his imprudent colleague.

The plays were celebrated in presence of Viret. "It is ordained," say the Registers of Council, "that booths be erected for our seigneurs, that they may comfortably witness the representation of the Acts of the Apostles."—1st July 1546. It does not appear, however, that these representations were frequently repeated. "Upon the remonstrances of the ministers," we read in the Registers, "resolved to delay the representations of the theatre to a less calamitous time."—July 1546. Ruchat, vol. v. p. 313. The minister inculpated was not Abel Poupin, as Ruchat relates, but Michael Cop, as the Registers attest.

[69] The minister, Abel Poupin, exerted his interest with the actors to appease the tumult excited by his colleague.

[70] It is seen by this instance, that Calvin was not so stern as to proscribe public games and amusements that harmonized with decency. "He himself made no scruple in engaging in play with the seigneurs of Geneva; but that was the innocent game of the key, which consists in being able to push the keys the nearest possible to the edge of a table."—Morus, quoted Hist. de la Suisse, vol. xi. p. 356.

[71] Allusion to a sister of M. de Falais.

[72] The project of marriage, developed in the two preceding letters, not having been realized, Viret turned his attention in another direction; and a passage in his will, preserved in the Archives of Geneva, informs us that he espoused, in his second marriage, Elizabeth Laharpe, daughter of a French refugee of Lausanne. This marriage was celebrated in October or November 1546, and the nuptial benediction was pronounced by Calvin himself, who, in a subsequent letter, (of the 3d December,) makes allusion to the journey which he had accomplished, in order to be present at the nuptials of his friend.

[73] At the request of Calvin, Farel had written a letter to Amy Perrin, in order to calm his resentment, and lead him back to the good path. The message of Farel, like that of Calvin himself, was without effect, and the quarrel between the Reformer and his old friend, now his adversary, became daily more confirmed and violent.

[74] A term frequently employed by Calvin to designate Perrin, with the adjunct of a derisive epithet,—Cæsar our comedian.

[75] See note 1, vol. i. p. 343. It appears, from this passage, that Froment was not at that time settled in Geneva. He was called thither a short time afterwards to assist Francis Bonivard in digesting the Chronicles of the city.

[76] The Commentaries on the four Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, and the Colossians, were not published until 1548, by the bookseller Girard, of Geneva. Is there a previous edition of the Commentary on the Galatians? We are not aware of any.

[77] This, one of the most remarkable of the works of Calvin, appeared only in 1550.

[78] This apparent reconciliation was without satisfactory result. Perrin could not tolerate, nor Calvin sacrifice, the right of censure vested in the Consistory, and which the excesses of the Libertins daily rendered more necessary. "Complaints to the Council by M. Calvin regarding the dissoluteness of the youth, there being nothing more common in the city than acts of debauchery and licentiousness."—Registers of Council, 11th October 1546.

[79] M. de Falais had sent Calvin a theological work by a certain Denis de la Roche, requesting his opinion of it.

[80] Allusion to the death of one of the sisters of M. de Falais, which they had not ventured to communicate to him.

[81] The Commentary on the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, dedicated to M. de Falais.

[82] The confiscation of the property of M. de Falais had been pronounced by the Court of Malines. That decree had been submitted to the confirmation of the Emperor.

[83] The sentence which put the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse to the ban of the Empire, 20th July 1546, was the signal for war in Germany. The Imperial army, and that of the Protestant Princes, observed one another for several months, on the banks of the Danube, without the one being able to obtain any decisive advantage over the other. But the troops of Charles the Fifth were decimated by want and sickness while there was an overabundance in the camp of the confederates.

[84] Maximilian d'Egmont, Count de Buren, a valiant and adventurous captain. He brought a powerful reinforcement to Charles the Fifth from the Netherlands, and he executed that difficult operation with the most happy success.

[85] For Peter Viret. See preceding letters to M. de Falais, pp. 63 and 74.

[86] Calvin lost his wife, Idelette de Bure, in the beginning of April 1549, and never married again. His Latin correspondence contains two beautiful and touching letters to Viret and to Farel (7th and 11th April) on that sad event. They will be found reprinted in this collection.

[87] Valeran Poulain, of Lille, who was at a later period minister of the French Church at Frankfort.

[88] The Emperor Charles V. See note 2, p. 78.

[89] Maurice of Saxony, cousin of the Elector John Frederic, and son-in-law of the Landgrave of Hesse, unworthily betraying the cause of the Confederates, concluded a secret treaty with the emperor, to whom he took the oath of fidelity, and who guarantied to him in return the spoils of his father-in-law.

[90] Nicolas des Gallars, of Paris, (M. de Saules,) the friend and secretary of Calvin, and one of the most distinguished ministers of Geneva. He was sent as pastor to the Church at Paris in 1557, reappointed in 1560 to the French Church of London, assisted the following year at the conference at Poissy, was named minister of the Church of Orleans, and became, in 1571, preacher to the Queen of Navarre. We have several of his works mentioned by Senebier, Hist. Litt., tom. i. p. 341.

[91] Helène de Falais. She had married Adrien de L'Isle, Seigneur de Trénoy.

[92] This diversion, dictated to the King of France by sound politics, was not effected, and Francis I. remained a peaceable spectator of events, whose necessary tendency was to secure, by the defeat of the Protestant party in Germany, the ascendency of Charles V. in Europe.

[93] The ministers of Berne were divided by incessant disputes on the subject of the Supper. Sulzer and certain of his colleagues inclined to the Lutheran view, which Erasme Ritter combated; and by an abuse of power, that was not uncommon at that period, the Seigneury of Berne claimed to determine by itself the sense of the controverted dogma, the settlement of which ought to have been remitted to a Synod.—Ruchat, tom. v. pp. 225, 226.

[94] The senator, Nicolas de Zerkinden, friend of Calvin and prefect of Nyon.

[95] The Roman Catholic and Reformed Cantons, solicited, the former by the emperor, the latter by the Protestant princes, to take part in the struggles of which Germany was the theatre, had both observed a strict neutrality. But the Seigneury of Berne having received information that military movements were taking place in Franche-Comté, then under the rule of the Spaniards, summoned ten thousand men to arms, and occupied the passes of the Jura. That measure, which arose out of the pressure of circumstances, would perhaps have brought about a division among the confederates, and serious complications from without, if the treachery of the Elector Maurice had not hastened on the course of events in Germany.—John de Müller, Hist. de la Confédération Suisse, continuation of M. Vulliemin, tom. xi. p. 292.

[96] A word effaced in the original.

[97] The original letter is without address. But it is generally believed that it was addressed by Calvin to the widow of the celebrated William Budé, great-grandson of the secretary to King Charles V., and one of the most learned personages of the period of the revival of letters. William Budé having declared in his will that he wished to be buried without ceremony, this circumstance led to the supposition that he had died in the faith of the Reformed. His widow not being able to make free profession of her faith at Paris, was about to settle at Geneva, on the solicitation of Calvin, (June 1549.) She was accompanied by her daughter and three of her sons, Louis, Francis, and John de Budé, who held a distinguished rank in the republic. The best known of the three brothers is John de Budé, Sieur de Vérace, the particular friend of Calvin and of Théodore de Bèze. He was received an inhabitant of Geneva the 27th June 1549, burgess the 2d May 1555, member of both Councils in 1559, fulfilled several important missions to the Protestant princes of Germany, and died in 1589, after having rendered distinguished services to his new country, and thereby added fresh lustre to his family, whose descendants still live at Geneva.—Galiffe, Notices Généalogiques des Familles Genèvoises, tom. iii. p. 83, et seq.

[98] On the back, in another handwriting,—"Of 46. I think that this letter must be to Madame Budé."

[99] Catharine de Budé married, in 1550, William de Trie, Seigneur de Varennes, a gentleman of the Lyonnais, a refugee at Geneva on account of religion.

[100] John Francis Nœguely, one of the most illustrious magistrates, and one of the most able captains of the republic of Berne, in the sixteenth century. In 1536 he commanded the Bernese army, which conquered the Pays de Vaud from the Duke of Savoy; discharged the functions of Avoyer from 1540 to 1568, and died at a very advanced age.

[101] In a note, by an unknown hand, "Philippe Buissonnier de Bresse."

[102] Several ministers of the Pays de Vaud, and particularly Zebedee, later pastor of Nyon, Lange, pastor of Bursins, delivered from the pulpit the most virulent declamations against the doctrines of the Reformer.

[103] On the news of the dangers that menaced the churches of Germany, an important mission had been confided to the Reformer. "Calvin is despatched by the Seigneury to Zurich, to obtain certain information of the condition of the war between the Emperor and the Protestant princes."—Registers of Council, 23d January 1547. "Calvin having returned, reports that the war between the Emperor and the Protestants is more enkindled than ever, and that the Swiss, apprehensive of that prince turning his arms against them, are putting themselves in a state of defence."—Ibid., 23d January 1547.

In a letter to Farel, he gave with greater detail the impressions he had received during his hasty journey.

[104] Situated at the extremity of the Confederation, without forming part of it, and sharing the faith of the Reformed Cantons, Constance, the first city open to the attacks of the Emperor upon the banks of the Rhine, invoked the aid of the Cantons, whose rigorous neutrality left it exposed without defence to its adversaries.—Histoire de la Confédération Suisse, tom. xi. p. 296.

[105] Ulrich, Duke of Wurtemberg, although among the first to submit to the Emperor, was compelled to sue for pardon on his knees, and to pay a ransom of 300,000 crowns.—Robertson, Hist. of Charles V., book viii.

[106] The present Quai des Bergues.

[107] Calvin at that time inhabited the house of the Sieur de Fréneville, situated in the Rue des Chanoines, near St. Peter's Church, and corresponding to the house in the same street which is now No. 122.—See the Mémoires de la Société d'Histoire de Genève, vol. ix. p. 391.

[108] He sought in marriage a relation of M. de Falais.

[109] The Emperor Charles the Fifth,—conqueror, without a combat, of the army of the confederate princes: thanks to the treason of Maurice of Saxony, this prince, although suffering severely from the gout, was at this very time receiving the submission of the confederate towns of Suabia and of the Palatinate, from which he exacted enormous penalties.

[110] The King, Francis I. He died the following month, the 31st March 1547.

[111] On the back—To Monseigneur, Monsieur de Fallez, at Basle, near to the Cauf-Hauss.—M. de Falais was in fact about to quit Strasbourg, then threatened by the imperial army, to fix his residence in Switzerland.

[112] "Quid enim audeat, qui tyranno se implicuit?" The town of Strasbourg had submitted itself to the emperor. The terms of that submission bore, that it shall renounce the League of Smalkald, and shall contribute, with the other states, to the execution of the sentence pronounced against the Landgrave and the Elector.

[113] Sebastian Castellio, who had then retired to Bâle.

[114] Antoine Perrenot, Bishop of Arras, Cardinal de Granvelle, the celebrated minister of Charles V. and of Philip II. He was born at Ornans, near Besançon in 1517, and died in 1586 at Madrid.

[115] Allusion to Valeran Poulain. It appears from the next letter in this Series, pp. 104-106, that Valeran sought, in spite of the opposition of M. de Falais, the hand of Mademoiselle de Willergy, a relation of this Seigneur, likewise sought by M. de Paré.—See Note 1, p. 98.

[116] Enclosed in a letter to M. de Falais, with the words,—Copy of a letter written to Valeran.

There has been already repeated mention of Valeran Poulain in the correspondence of Calvin with M. de Falais, and we shall again find his name in the subsequent letters of the Reformer, when a refugee at Strasbourg on the ground of religion. He aspired at that time to the functions of the ministry, which he exercised at a later period at London and Frankfort; and if, by his indiscretion, he at first drew down upon himself the severe censures of Calvin, he afterwards succeeded in regaining his esteem and meriting his affection. See the correspondence of the Reformer, (years 1555, 1556.)

[117] Invested with the right of censure and ecclesiastical excommunication, the Consistory daily beheld its authority assailed and disowned by numerous adversaries, who accused it of encroaching upon the power of the magistrates. "The ministers complain that they are accused of exceeding the authority accorded them by the edicts, and request permission to put into force the right of excommunication, in order to bring offenders to their duty. Resolved to hand over to the Consistory rebellious and obstinate offenders, and to leave the others unmolested."—Registers of Council, 21st and 29th May 1547.

[118] "Arrival at Geneva of the minister Viret, a very excellent man."—Registers, April 1547.

[119] Doubtless Michel Morel.

[120] Is this an allusion to the gradually declining influence of Amy Perrin?

[121] To the excellent servant of Christ our Lord, Doctor Wolfgang Musculus, most reverend pastor of the Church of Augsbourg, brother, and fellow-minister.

Wolfgang Musculus, born in a small town of Lorraine, and of an obscure family, raised himself by his talents, and the varied range of his accomplishments, to a place among the most distinguished men of his time. He cultivated with success music, poetry, and theology; was converted to the gospel in a convent by the perusal of the writings of Luther; gained the friendship of Capito and Bucer, and quitted Strasbourg in 1531, with a view to the discharge of the functions of the ministry in the church of Augsbourg. Driven from that city in 1548, by the proclamation of the Interim, he withdrew at first to Zurich, and afterwards to Berne, where he died in 1563. His numerous manuscripts, as well as those of Abraham Musculus his son, are preserved in the Library of Zoffingue.—Melch. Adam, Vitæ Theol. Germ., p. 367.

[122] Named pastor of the Italian church at Augsbourg in October 1545, Ochino fled from that city on the approach of the imperial army, in the early part of the year 1547.—Schelhorn Ergoetzlichkeiten, vol. iii. pp. 1141, 1142.

[123] Wolfgang Musculus did not cease to proclaim the Gospel in Augsbourg until the church in which he preached had been closed by order of the emperor, and his congregation dispersed. He was himself obliged to take his departure the year following, (26th June 1548.)—Melch. Ad., p. 381.

[124] See ante, vol. i., pp. 312, 313, note. Calvin called on him for his aid with the magistrates of that town for having a promise of marriage cancelled between Mademoiselle de Wilergy and Valeran.—Bibl. de Genève, vol. 106.

[125] To the most erudite Doctor Francis Dryander, and very dear friend.

Francis Enzinas, better known under the name of Dryander, born at Burgos in Spain, was the disciple of Melanchthon, and embraced the Reformation with ardour. Imprisoned for having published a translation of the New Testament in Spanish, he recovered his liberty in 1542, and visited Calvin at Geneva. He afterwards withdrew to Strasbourg, whence he passed over to England, after the adoption of the Interim, and occupied a chair in the University of Oxford. There are several letters of Dryander to Bullinger (1549-1552,) in the fine collection of Zurich Letters, published by the Parker Society, 1st series, Vol. i. p. 348, and following.

[126] Valeran Poulain. See pp. 104, 110.

[127] The Emperor Charles the Fifth had just gained a decisive victory at Mühlberg (24th April 1547) over the Protestant princes.

[128] That is to say, at Bâle. The French church of that town was founded after the massacre De la Saint Barthelemy, at the request of a great number of refugees, among whom we find the children of the Admiral de Coligny.—MSS. of the archives of the French Church of Bâle.

[129] The bearer of this letter was the captain-general, Amy Perrin, then on his way to Bâle. He had been charged with a secret mission to the new king of France, Henry II., and was imprisoned after his return to Geneva, because of unfaithfulness in the fulfilment of his commission.

[130] A pretender to the hand of Mademoiselle de Wilergy.

[131] Valeran Poulain. See note 1, p. 113.

[132] Nicolas Zerkinden, senator of Berne, prefect of the town of Nyon.

[133] The establishment of discipline in the churches of the Pays de Vaud.

[134] An ordinance had recently interdicted the use of slashed breeches at Geneva. The reason which Calvin gives for this prohibition may be seen in a subsequent letter to the faithful of France, (24th July 1547.)

[135] John de Budé, Sieur de Vérace. See note 1, p. 90.

[136] Amy Perrin.

[137] See the notice concerning the family of Budé, p. 90. We believe, contrary to the opinion of M. Galiffe, Notices Généalogiques, tom. iii. p. 83, that this letter is addressed to Louis or to Francis Budé, and not to John de Budé, Sieur de Vérace, their brother. This latter had already made a journey to Geneva, and he was known to the Reformer, who had introduced him in very kind terms to M. de Falais.—Letter of 4th June 1547, p. 118. It is not then to the Sieur de Vérace, that the first words of Calvin's letter can apply, but to one of his brothers: "Although I am personally unknown to you, I do not on that account hesitate to write you privately, in the hope that my letter will be welcome," &c. The family of Budé were then preparing to leave France. Two years afterwards, they settled at Geneva, as appears from their registration in the list of the inhabitants, 27th June 1549, and the following passage of a letter from Viret to Calvin, 12th June of the same year: "I rejoice that the Budé have arrived, along with their mother."—MSS. of the Library of Geneva.

[138] "Complaint of Calvin against the wife of Amy Perrin, who insulted the minister Abel in full Consistory."—Registers of Council, 24th June.

[139] The import of this note, written in the Savoyard language, and affixed to the pulpit of the ministers, was, "that people did not wish to have so many masters; that they (the ministers) had now gone far enough in their course of censure; that the renegade monks like them had done nothing more than afflict all the world in this way; that if they persisted in their course, people would be reduced to such a condition that they would curse the hour in which they emerged from the rule of monachism; and that they (the ministers) should take care lest as much should be done to them as was done to the Canon Vernly of Fribourg." The last passage was equivalent to a threat of death.

[140] The former canon, Jacques Gruet, of dissolute manners, of licentious and perverse doctrine, constantly opposed to the ministers, and intolerant of all rule in the Church as in the State, had lain under the imputation of having been the instigator of the attempt at poisoning Viret in 1535.—Histoire de la Suisse, vol. xi. p. 364.

[141] Pierre Vandel, one of the chief of the reprobate children of Geneva. Handsome and brilliant, he loved to exhibit himself surrounded by valets and courtezans, with rings on his fingers, and his breast covered with gold chains. He had been imprisoned on account of his debaucheries, and his insolent behaviour before the Consistory.

[142] Doctor Chelius, in the handwriting of Calvin.

[143] Henry of Brunswick.

[144] The personage here designated is doubtless Erich, hereditary prince of Sweden, who ascended the throne in 1560, and was deposed in 1568.

[145] A common interest at that time conciliated the King of France and the Swiss. The ambassadors of Henry II., Brissac and Marillac, assured Geneva of the friendship of the King, and took in charge letters of Calvin to the Helvetic Churches.—Histoire de la Suisse, vol. xi. p. 358.

[146] The minister Francis Perucel, called La Rivière.

[147] Intimidated by the defeat of the Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse had submitted himself to the Emperor, and only obtained his pardon by imploring it upon his knees, and surrendering his person and states into the power of this prince.

[148] Amy Perrin. His wife, daughter of a rich burgess, François Favre d'Echallens, and reprimanded incessantly by the Consistory, was the implacable enemy of the ministers and of Calvin.

[149] Jacques Gruet, formerly a Canon, and a man of licentious and irregular morals, impatient of all restraint either of Church or State. Severely censured by the ministers on account of his debaucheries, he had uttered threats of death against them, which he even ventured to affix to the pulpit of St. Peter's Church. His trial, conducted with all the rigour of that period, terminated by a sentence of capital punishment. Condemned for sedition, blasphemy, and atheism, he perished on the scaffold the 26th July 1547.

[150] Subjected to torture, Gruet admitted his guilt, and as well on the ground of his impious and blasphemous productions, as of a letter written to a private individual, in which he exhorted the Duke of Savoy to turn his arms against Geneva, he was condemned to death. It appeared, according to the letter of Calvin to Viret, of which a fragment is here reproduced, that this sentence was not unanimous, and that Gruet reckoned up to this time, in the councils of the republic, friends or accomplices who were desirous of saving him. This did not prevent his execution on the 26th July 1547, and the example threw terror into the ranks of the party of the Libertins. On the trial of Gruet, see the various historians of Geneva,—Spon, Picot, and the Histoire de la Suisse, vol. xi. pp. 364, 365.

[151] Entitled: To our very dear lords and brethren who desire the advancement of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

During the period that the Reformation was for a while overcome in Germany, and that it had to sustain the rudest conflicts in order to its establishment at Geneva, the most alarming reports were spread among the French Protestants, and carried discouragement and dismay into their ranks. Calvin, addressing his brethren from the midst of the struggle in which he was engaged against the party of the Libertins, reassured and comforted them by his letters, and exhorted them to place their entire confidence in God.

[152] Ils font des mauvais chevaulx à mordre et à regimber.

[153] Francis Baudouin of Arras, a distinguished lawyer, fled to Geneva on account of religion. He became the friend and the secretary of Calvin, whose opinions at a later period he attacked, and betrayed his confidence by robbing him of his most precious papers.—(See Drelincourt, Defence of Calvin, pp. 251, 252.) Called successively as Professor of Law to Bourges, to Strasbourg, and to Heidelberg, Baudouin died in 1573, leaving the reputation of one of the most learned men of his time, and of a most versatile spirit in matters of religion. It has been justly said of him, that he was a Roman Catholic in France, a Lutheran at Strasbourg, and a Calvinist at Geneva.

[154] See note 1, p. 111. Dryander seems at this period to have filled the office of secretary to M. de Falais. He carried on at the same time a correspondence with Calvin, expressing the highest esteem for his character and talents.—Library of Geneva, Vol. 110. One of his brothers, John Ensinas, had been burnt at Rome in 1545, a martyr to the Protestant faith.

[155] Some Flemish and French refugees had already formed a community at Vezel, which was enlarged in 1553 by the dispersion of the foreign congregation of London, and which was constituted as a church by the minister Francis Pérucel, called La Rivière.

[156] Jacques Gruet. See p. 128.

[157] Amy Perrin.

[158] Isaiah lix. 15.

[159] Of Mademoiselle de Wilergy.

[160] The conclusion of the letter is in the handwriting of Francis Baudouin.

[161] The signature of the letter is autograph.

[162] "M. Calvin has represented that letters have been written to him, as well from Bourgoyne as from Lyons, to the effect that the children of Geneva were willing to give five hundred crowns to have him put to death; he does not know who these are."—Registers of the Consistory, 1st September 1547.

[163] Charged with an important mission to the court of King Henry II., Perrin, on his return, was subjected to the accusation of treason in the carrying out of his commission. The King of France had said that he would give two millions to be master of Geneva. Perrin was accused of having replied, that two hundred horse would be sufficient to conquer the city.—Hist. de la Suisse, vol. xi. p. 361. It could not however be proved, that he had contracted secret engagements with France. He was nevertheless imprisoned, afterwards released at the request of the Seigneury of Berne, and stripped of his offices.—Registers of Council, September and November 1548.

[164] Idelette de Bure is known to have espoused in her first nuptials an Anabaptist, Jean Storder. According to the doctrines of that sect, which denied the authority of the civil power, the marriage to be legitimate had no need of the sanction of the magistrate.

[165] Allusion to the work which Calvin was at that time preparing against the Council of Trent, and which appeared at the end of the year.—See the Letter to Farel of the 28th December 1547.

[166] See the letter to M. de Falais of the 16th August, p. 132.

[167] Emmanuel Tremelli, a learned Hebraist of Ferrara, disciple of Peter Martyr, at that time in retirement at Strasbourg.

[168] The book,—De la Vertu et Usage du Saint Ministère et des Sacremens, Genève, 1548. Senebier, Hist. Litt., vol. i. p. 156, Art. Viret.

[169] The minister Antoine Maigret, who was shortly afterwards deposed from his charge.

[170] We read in the Life of Calvin by Theodore Beza, "From his youth he was all the better, and liberally brought up,—at the expense of his father, however—in the society of the children of the house of Montmor, whom he also accompanied as the companion of their studies at Paris." It is to one of the members of that noble family, Claude de Hangest, Abbot of Saint Eley, that Calvin dedicated, in 1532, his Commentary on Seneca's Treatise De Clementia.

[171] Bullinger had submitted his book on the Sacraments to Calvin, (Absoluta de Christi et ejus Ecclesiæ Sacramentis Tractatio,) in which he departed slightly from the doctrine of Zwingle, with the view of approximating to that of the French Reformer. Still, however, the mystery of the spiritual presence of Christ, under external and material symbols, was not expressed in it with sufficient clearness. Calvin had fully criticised this book in a letter, or rather in an extended memoir, the original of which is preserved at Zurich, under the title, Censura Libri Bullingeri de Sacramentis, Geneva, 27th February 1547. This memoir, written with a brotherly freedom, concludes with these words:—"You thus have what in your book I desire to see corrected, that it may meet with absolute approval. I make no note of the parts that merit commendation. I have discharged the office of a friend, by complying with your wishes, and freely admonishing you; it now remains for you to take my liberty in good part. This I am confident you will do."—Library of Zurich. Coll. Hottinger, M. F. 80, p. 338.

[172] Peter Farnese, son of Pope Paul III., had in truth been recently assassinated at Placentia, and that city had opened its gates to Charles V. But Parma remained under the power of the Pope, who in vain sued for justice from the Emperor on account of the murder of Farnese, and the dispossession of his children.—Robertson, History of Charles V., B. ix.

[173] The Catholic cantons having engaged to take no step that should have the effect of connecting them with the Emperor, the Reformed cantons, with Berne at their head, bound themselves to the strictest neutrality, and informed the German princes, that they could give them no aid without throwing the half of the confederate states into the hands of their enemy.—Hist. de la Suisse. Tom. xi. p. 291.

[174] M. de Montmor. See note, p. 141.

[175] For The Apology of M. de Falais.

[176] According to the testimony of the Registers of Council, Amy Perrin had been restored to liberty, on bail, at the instance of the Seigneury of Berne and his family, and on condition of begging the forgiveness of God and men, and paying the expenses of justice.—Register, 23d November 1547. Had this legal liberation been preceded by the escape of the prisoner? We are not aware.

[177] The scene of tumult and sedition described in this letter left so lively an impression on the mind of Calvin, that he recalled it seventeen years afterwards, on his deathbed, in his farewell to the ministers of Geneva, subjoining these memorable words:—"Although I am nothing, yet I know that I prevented three thousand disturbances from taking place in Geneva; but take courage, you will become strong, for God will make use of that city, and will maintain it; and I assure you he will keep it."—Collection de M. Tronchin, à Genève. Adieux de Calvin, recueillis par Pinaut.

The Registers of Council are silent on this scene, the date of which has been given, by a frequently repeated mistake, as the 17th September; but the circumstances tally with the 13th December 1547.

[178] Disarmed for a moment by the heroic attitude of Calvin in the rising of the 13th December, the parties that divided Geneva were not slow to renew their lamentable strife. The voice of the Reformer was disregarded, and he wrote with deep sadness on the 23d December,—"Our affairs are in no better condition. I do not cease to press upon them, but I cause them to make little or no advancement. I am now returning from the Senate; I said a great deal, but it is like telling a story to the deaf. May the Lord restore them to their right mind."—Calvin to Viret, MSS. of Geneva, Vol. 106.

[179] Calvin had just published his celebrated treatise of the Antidote, (Acta Synodi Tridentinæ cum Antidoto, 1547,) which he translated into French the year following, with changes fitted to bring it within the comprehension of the people.—Opuscules, p. 881. In this work the Reformer passes in review the decrees of the Council of Trent, and refutes them with a merciless logic and a marvellous eloquence. The Catholic theologian Cochlæus replied to him by personal attacks, which Des Gallars and Beza undertook to refute.

[180] See Letter, p. 148.

[181] In testimony of regard for Calvin, the Council adopted the following decree: "Resolved to present to Calvin all the furniture that is in his house belonging to the city, 29th December 1547." The preceding year he had been offered ten crowns as a present, but he refused them, praying the Council to distribute them among the other ministers who were poor compared with him, "and even to diminish his stipend in order to benefit them."

[182] This family had not yet quitted France. See the letters, pp. 90, 119. They received this new letter of Calvin, on the occasion of the death of one of its members, perhaps Mathieu de Budé, who had corresponded with the Reformer in 1546, and of whom, subsequent to this period, all trace is lost. There exists (MSS. of the Library of Geneva, vol. 109) a letter of Mathieu de Budé to Calvin, relative to the assassination of John Diaz at Neubourg. We remark the following passage:—"I have received your letter ... which was most welcome to me, as well because I recognize in it your disposition of goodwill and love, as on account of the ordinary consolation which I have received from it...."—26th April 1546. The author of that letter is not mentioned by M. Galiffe.—Notices Généalogiques, tom. iii. p. 83. He had died, no doubt, before the establishment of his family at Geneva.

[183] Dated, on the back of the letter, in a foreign hand.

[184] Doubtless these were John de Budé, Sieur de Vérace, and Louis, Sieur de la Motte, his brother.

[185] He refers to the promise of a visit to M. de Falais. Calvin went in fact to Bâle the 2d of February following. We read under that date, in the Council Registers of the state of Geneva:—"Calvin went to Bâle. The Council offers him things requisite for the voyage. 26th February,—Calvin on his return from Bâle."

[186] The Apology of M. de Falais.

[187] Renée of France, Duchess of Ferrara. See, in this collection, the letters of Calvin to that princess.

[188] In the journey which he had recently made to Bâle, Calvin had decided M. de Falais to come and fix himself definitively at Geneva.

[189] Veigy, near Geneva. M. de Falais made there the purchase of a domain which he occupied during several years.

[190] See letter to Bullinger of 19th September 1547, p. 143. The observations of Calvin on the treatise on the Sacraments being badly received, as it appears, by the minister of the Church of Zurich, had led, on the part of the latter, to a temporary coldness, of which Calvin complained in a letter, characterized alike by the noblest independence and the most Christian affection.

[191] On the back, in the handwriting of M. de Falais:—Received the 12th April 1548.

[192] M. de Falais could not establish himself at Geneva, without losing the right of a burgess, which he had acquired at Bâle.

[193] The Emperor, and the new king of France, Henry II. Faithful to the policy of Francis I., a persecutor of the Reformation in his own States, the latter was about to conclude a secret treaty with the Protestant princes of Germany.

[194] While persecution decimated the Reformed Churches of France, and the proclamation of the Interim dispersed those of Germany, the Swiss Churches were a prey to the most grievous dissensions, and appeared further removed than ever from that era of unity and peace which Calvin never ceased to invoke for them.

[195] "Calvin informs the Council of certain disputes between the Seigneury and the ministers of Berne, which have gone so far that three of the ministers of said city have been deposed, besides Peter Viret of Lausanne; requests that leave may be given him to go to Berne to defend Viret, which was granted him; the Seigneury, besides, undertaking to defray the expenses of the journey."—Registers of Council, May 7, 1548.

[196] By his second wife, Sebastienne de la Harpe, Viret had three daughters, designated in his will as Marie, Marthe, and Jeanne.—(MS. of the Arch. of Geneva.)

[197] See letter of 9th May preceding. The relations between the Vaudois ministers and the Seigneury of Berne, became daily more complicated. A Synod assembled at Lausanne, having ventured formally to propound ten propositions contrary to the celebrated disputation of Berne, and to manifest an inclination in favour of ecclesiastical discipline, with the concurrence of two Bernese ministers, Beat Gerung and Simon Sulcer,—these two clergymen were arbitrarily deposed by the Seigneury, under the pretext of "the maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the Church."—Ruchat, tom. v. pp. 357, 358.

[198] Jodocus, minister of the Church of Berne.

[199] See the letters, pp. 143, 160. In a new message to Bullinger, Calvin strove to dissipate the still lingering prejudices entertained by the Zurich theologians against those of Geneva and of Strasbourg, regarding the Sacraments; and he proposed the basis of that union, long-desired, which was consummated the following year between Zurich and Geneva. The Church of Berne, now deeply imbued with Lutheran views, refused its adhesion.

[200] Ministers of the Church of Berne.

[201] M. de Falais was on the point of leaving Bâle to settle at Geneva. He arrived, doubtless, in that town the end of July 1548. We read, in a letter of Calvin to Viret of the 20th August 1548: "Dominus Falesius uxor et soror vos salutant;—the wife and sister of M. de Falais salute you."—Vol. 106 of the Library of Geneva. The correspondence of Calvin with this Seigneur, thenceforward interrupted, was only resumed occasionally, and in 1552, ceased entirely.

[202] The contract of marriage of Mademoiselle Wilergy.

[203] M de Montmor. See the note, p. 141.

[204] Messengers of the Emperor were then scouring the Cantons with a view to detach them from the French alliance, which was nevertheless renewed, 9th June 1549.

[205] The minister Toussain, pastor of the church of Montbeliard, at that time dispersed by the imperial army.

[206] See the letter to M. de Falais of 17th July 1548, and the relative note.

[207] We have reproduced (Vol. i. p. 449,) a letter of Calvin to Viret, containing a severe judgment of the Reformer upon the magistrates of Geneva. Stolen from Viret by a faithless servant, and given to the Seigneury by Trolliet, this letter excited real commotions, the traces of which are to be found in the Registers of Council.

"Calvin justifies himself in council with regard to a certain letter he had written, in which it was alleged he blamed the Seigneury of this city. He also complains of the calumnies directed against him by Trolliet."—24th September.

On the 15th October following, Farel appears in Council, "and prays them to entertain a constant regard for Calvin; that he observes with grief they do not show to that servant of God the deference that is due to him ... praying the Council to take order therein."—28th October. "Farel testifies anew that too little regard is had for the character and merits of Calvin; that he has no equal in learning; that it was not necessary to take such offence at what he might have said, as he had censured with great freedom the greatest men, such as Luther, Melanchthon, and many others.

"Resolved, to thank the said Farel, and to remit to him the original of the foresaid letter, in order that it might be restored to Viret."

[208] Perhaps to Charles de Jonvillers, who became some years afterwards the secretary and friend of the Reformer. It was in fact in 1549, and in consequence of the advice of Calvin, that this Seigneur left Chartres, his country, to go to Geneva, which received him as inhabitant in 1550, and as burgess in 1556.

[209] Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, Duke of Somerset, Regent of England, under the minority of Edward VI. It was under his administration that the Reformation was victoriously established in England. Supported by Parliament, he suppressed the troubles which arose in some parts of the kingdom after the death of Henry VIII., confirmed the king's supremacy, abolished the worship of images, private masses, and restored the communion in both kinds. He held a correspondence with Calvin, who dedicated to him, June 24, 1548, his Commentary on the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy; and by advice of the Reformer, he offered an asylum to the exiles, Bucer, Fagi, Ochino, and Peter Martyr,—banished for the sake of their religion from the Continent. Beloved by the people, hated by the nobles, he made himself unpopular by his want of success in the war which he kept up against the Scots and in France; was overthrown by a conspiracy of the nobility, imprisoned in the Tower of London, (October 1549,) and only recovered his liberty the year following, to perish in 1552 on the scaffold, victim of the ambition of Warwick, Earl of Northumberland, his relative.

[210] Deprived, the preceding year, of his office of councillor and captain-general, Amy Perrin had contrived, by the force of intrigue, to recover his former dignities.

[211] The city of Bourdeaux having risen in revolt against the authority of the king on the ground of fresh taxation, the Constable Montmorency, being commissioned to suppress the disturbances, acted with relentless severity, and signalized his entry into the capital of Guienne by frightful executions.—De Thou, Lib. v.

[212] Bucer wrote to Calvin:—"Earnestly entreat the Lord for this republic that it may learn to put away its own will and obey him."—Calv. Opera, Lib. ix. p. 46. But the magistrates had already resolved to make their submission, which involved the suppression of the Gospel in that unhappy city.

[213] Is the reference to the partisans of the Imperial Alliance?

[216] Peronne de Pisseleu, wife of Michel de Barbançon, Seigneur de Cany, one of the personages of most importance in Picardy. This lady, instructed in the Reformed faith by Laurent de Normandie, lieutenant of the king at Noyon, and the friend of Calvin, had for a long time to endure the severity of her husband, who afterwards came at a later period to be a partaker of like faith.—Bèze, Hist. Eccl., tom. ii. p. 244.; De Thou, lib. xxv. Madame de Cany, sister of the Duchess d'Etampes, favourite of the late king, had possessed an unbounded influence at court, which she always used for generous purposes. Her ordinary residence was the Château de Varanues, situated on the Oise, near to Noyon.

[217] The donations which a pious liberality daily multiplied at Geneva, gave rise to the foundations known by the name of French, German, and Italian Bourses. The names of Margaret de Valois, and the Duchess of Ferrara, shine in the first rank upon the list of foreign contributors.—Bolsec, Life of Calvin, c. xi.

[218] To the Faithful Servants of Christ, the Ministers of the Church of Montbeliard, dearest Brethren and Fellow-Ministers.

George of Wurtemberg, Count of Montbeliard, having fallen under the disgrace of the Emperor, at the end of the war of Smalkald, in which he had taken part in the ranks of the Protestant princes, was stript of his Principality in 1548, and withdrew to the Canton of Berne.—Ruchat, vol. v. p. 368. At the termination of that revolution, the Churches of the Pays de Montbeliard were dispersed, and their ministers, among whom was to be remarked Pierre Toussain, were banished, and sought an asylum in the different Reformed Cantons of Switzerland, until the period of the restoration, both political and religious, that replaced them some years afterwards in their native country.

[219] The year 1549 is remarkable for the tendencies to union manifested by many of the Swiss Churches, and for their happy issue! Several persons, says Ruchat, zealous for religion, imagined that the clergy of Zurich and Geneva did not hold the same doctrine on the Supper, on the ground of some slight difference in the expressions they made use of; and this divergence caused them pain. Accordingly, as they held Bullinger and Calvin in great esteem, and desired to be able to profit equally by writings published by theologians of both churches, they deemed it necessary to institute conferences with a view to union; and Calvin, ever full of zeal for the interests of the Church, did not hesitate to subscribe to this petition.—Hospinien, tom. ii. p. 367; Ruchat, tom. v. p. 369.

[220] Valeran Poulain, brother-in-law of Hooper, whose sister he espoused at Zurich. He became this same year minister of the congregation cf Foreign Protestants at Glastonbury, near London. We shall find him afterwards minister of the Church of Frankfort.

[221] John Hooper, formerly chaplain to the Duke of Somerset, withdrew to Zurich during the latter years of the reign of Henry VIII. He was at this time disposed to return to England.

[222] Ambroise Blaurer, formerly minister of the Reformed Church of Constance, at this time minister of the Church of Bienne.

[223] This undated fragment should, we think, be referred to the month of February 1549; that is, to the period at which Bucer, compelled to leave Strasbourg, by the establishment of the Interim in that town, was making preparations for his departure for England. In one of his letters to Calvin we discover the following passage:—"We are only hindered by the tears and sighs of the pious—of whom there are still a great many here—from leaving this place before we get orders. For, if the Lord will, we wish rather to seal than to break up our ministry. You see how our affairs stand, and how much we need the assistance of your prayers, both in our own behalf and on that of this very unfortunate Church."—Calv. Opera, b. ix. p. 233.

Sadly disappointed in the dream of his whole life—the union of the Reformed Churches of Germany and Switzerland—forgotten by parties who could not forgive his moderation in an age of hatred and intolerance, Bucer carried with him into exile the respect and affection of Calvin, who in a letter, of which we have here only a mere fragment, addressed to him the highest consolations of Christian philosophy.

[224] While Calvin was engaged in active negotiations with the ministers of Zurich for the adoption of a common formula regarding the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, he addressed to the ministers of the Church of Berne a statement of what the Church of Geneva held on that important question, in the hope of leading that Church into the proposed union. But the Bernese clergy, placed in a position of absolute dependence on the seigneury, could not adopt any formula without its authority; and the seigneurs, jealous of their influence, regarded with a distrustful eye any communication with the ministers of Geneva. The approaches of Calvin, also, were not well received, and the noble desire of the Reformer for the union of the Helvetian churches, realized at a later period by Bullinger, met with no response.—Ruchat, tom. v. pp. 578, 579.

[225] A peculiar interest attaches to this and the following letter, written under a load of great domestic affliction. Early in April 1549, Calvin lost the worthy partner of his life, Idelette de Bure, whose frail and delicate health gave way under the pressure of a protracted illness, and whose last hours are known to us by the touching picture given of them by the Reformer. The consolations of friendship, and the consideration of the important duties he had to discharge, supported Calvin in this affliction, and the self-control which he manifested during the first days of his bereavement, excited the admiration of his friends. Viret wrote him on this occasion as follows: "Wonderfully and incredibly have I been refreshed, not by empty rumours alone, but especially by numerous messengers who have informed me how you, with a heart so broken and lacerated, have attended to all your duties even better than hitherto ... and that, above all, at a time when grief so fresh, and on that account all the more severe, might have prostrated your mind. Go on then as you have begun ... and I pray God most earnestly that you may be enabled to do so, and that you may receive daily greater comfort and be strengthened more and more."—Letter of 10th April 1549. Calv. Opera, tom. ix. p. 53

[226] Idelette de Bure had, by her first marriage with Jean Storder, several children known to us only by the pious solicitude of their mother on her deathbed.

[227] We read in Viret's letter to Calvin already referred to,—"My wife salutes you most courteously; she has been grieved in no ordinary way by the death of her very dear sister, and she and I feel it to be a loss to us all." Idelette de Bure kept up with Viret's wife a pious epistolary correspondence, which has unfortunately not been preserved.

[228] The minister Francis Bourgouin.

[229] See the letter and the note at p. 201.

[230] Laurent de Normandie, sprung from a noble family of Picardy, fellow-countryman and friend of Calvin, discharged the functions of master of requests and of lieutenant of the King at Noyon, before retiring to Geneva. Received inhabitant of the town, the 2d May 1547, burgess, the 25th April 1555, he lived there in intimacy with Calvin, who dedicated to him in 1550 his Traité des Scandales. He had married for his first wife Anne de la Vacquerie, of a noble family, which has merged in that of the Dukes of Saint Simon, and illustrious under the reign of Louis XI., by the first president Jacques de la Vacquerie. A short time after his arrival at Geneva he lost his wife, whose edifying death is the subject of Calvin's letter to Madame de Cany, and he married a second time (14th September 1550) Anne Colladon.—Galiffe, Notices Généalogiques sur les Familles de Genève, tom. ii. p. 527.

[231] Eloi de la Vacquerie.

[232] Accused of having wished to seduce a servant, Ferron was deposed from the ministry on the 5th September 1548.—Registers of the Council.

[233] In a letter from Calvin to Farel, written on the same day as that to Viret, we meet with a passage regarding Amy Perrin:—"Cæsar, our comedian, in his last mission, exasperated them [the Bernese] exceedingly, and I fear he has commenced a serious tragedy among us."—MSS. of Geneva, vol. 106. Charged with a mission to Berne, he had returned to Geneva more insolent and more intractable than ever.

[234] The learned lawyer, Francis Hotman, recently engaged in the evangelical cause, had quitted France, his native country, at the advice of Calvin, to retire to Geneva. He became, during the same year, Professor of Law at the Academy of Lausanne.—See La France Protestante, Art. Hotman.

[235] The new King of France, Henry II., sought an alliance with the Swiss with extreme eagerness. His envoys, Boisrigault, Liancourt, Lavan, and Menage overran the Cantons, scattering everywhere proofs of his liberality, to obtain a renewal of the ancient treaties. Everywhere, says the Swiss historian, their proposals were welcomed, except at Berne and at Zurich. In the latter town, Bullinger rose with great energy against this negotiating with a man who was converting a loyal and Christian people into a nation of hired murderers. He called to their recollection the persecutions of which France had been the theatre, and adjured his fellow-citizens to avoid all terms with a persecuting monarch, who was covered with the blood of their brethren. Better aware than Bullinger of the dangers which the supremacy of the Emperor was spreading over the various states of Europe, and over the Reformed Churches of Germany and Switzerland, and hoping, perhaps, to obtain by a treaty some relief to the faithful of France, Calvin was in favour of the French alliance, and in this remarkable letter attempted to vindicate its legitimacy by examples borrowed from the Old Testament.—Histoire de la Suisse, tom. xi. p. 306, et suiv.

[236] On the back: It is thought that this letter has been written to Madame de la Roche-Posay, Abbess of Thouars. A Seigneur of that name played an important part in the religious wars of Poitou, but he figured in the ranks of the Roman Catholic army.—Bèze, Hist. Eccl., tom. ii. p. 588. There is a letter from the Reformed Church of de la Roche-Posay of the 27th May 1561, addressed to Calvin. (Library of Geneva, Vol. 107.)

[237] This letter is without a date, but is evidently related to the early period of Bucer's residence in England. Proceeding from Strasbourg on the 5th April 1549 with Paul Fagius, he reached London on the 25th, and met with a very cordial reception at Lambeth, in the house of Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. At the desire of his protector, and amid the sorrows inseparable from his exile, he immediately undertook a new translation of the Bible, which he was not permitted to finish, owing to repeated illness, brought on by the change of climate. He was engaged, at the same time, on a revision of the English Liturgy, from which he removed everything that appeared to be tainted with Popery, without going as far in these corrections as he was desired by Calvin, who was pressing him by letter to remove the accusations of his life, by showing himself more resolute and firm than hitherto.—See La France Protestante of M. M. Haag. Art. Bucer.

[238] War prevailed at that time between France and England, with Artois and Scotland for its theatre. Peace was concluded only the year following (May 1550).—De Thou, tom. vi.

[239] In allusion to the Emperor, who saw his power increase by the weakness of the English and French monarchs, who were equally interested in opposing his supremacy on the Continent.

[240] Doubtless one of the ministers of the Church of Berne.

[241] Nicolas Amsdorf, a learned German minister, exaggerated the Lutheran doctrine regarding Works and the Supper, and wrote a book, in which he endeavoured to prove that good works are hurtful to salvation,—Bona opera sunt ad salutem noxia et perniciosa.—McIchior Adam, pp. 69, 70

[242] The common formulary, doubtless, on the Supper, compiled by Calvin, which the theologians of Zurich and Geneva were led to adopt.

[243] While Schaffhausen, Basle, and Bienne acceded to the French alliance, Zurich and Berne haughtily refused to be the allies of a monarch who was the persecutor of the churches of France. Moved by the eloquence of Bullinger, the Seigneury of Zurich declared that it would lean upon God alone, and dispense with the alliance of the king.—Hist. de la Suisse, tom. xi. p. 308.

[244] "To the Most Noble, Most Gifted, and Most Honourable Lady Ann, Eldest Daughter of the very Illustrious Protector of England."

Anne Seymour, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Somerset, Protector of England, was distinguished alike for her illustrious descent, genius, and piety. She married in 1550 the Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of Northumberland, and thus apparently sealed the reconciliation of her father with the ambitious head of that illustrious house. We read in a letter, from Martin Micronius to Bullinger, of 4th June 1550:—"On the third of this month was celebrated a marriage between the daughter of the Duke of Somerset and the son of the Earl of Warwick, at which the King himself was present. This event, I hope, will wonderfully unite and conciliate the friendship of those noblemen."—Zurich Letters, 1st series, tom. ii. p. 569.

[245] The messenger charged with the letter to the Regent of 22d October 1549.

[246] The names and fate of these two brothers of M. de Falais are not known.

[247] See the account of the persecutions in Hainault in L'Histoire des Martyrs, p. 184. A woman named Mary was buried alive. A learned Frenchman named M. Nicolas, endured courageously the torment of the stake, crying out in the midst of the flames: "O Charles, Charles, how long will thy courage endure?"

[248] One of the martyrs here referred to was a poor tailor, who, led before the King and Diana of Poictiers, made a courageous confession of his faith, addressed stern words to la favorite, and was condemned to perish in the flames. The king wished to be a spectator of his sufferings, "and, to command a better view, went to the house of Sieur de la Rochepot, opposite the stake. The martyr remained firm, and having perceived the king, he fastened on him a look so fixed and penetrating, that the affrighted monarch was forced to retire; and he afterwards repeatedly confessed, that the look of that man incessantly pursued him, and that he never again wished to be present at a fine spectacle."—Histoire des Martyrs, p. 189, Bèze, tom. i. p. 79.

[249] George de Wurtemberg, Count of Montbeliard, dispossessed of his estates by Charles V. He had obtained from the Seigneury of Berne permission to reside at Arau.

[250] See letter p. 208.

After the long conferences, in which Farel and Fabri took part in the name of the Church of Neuchatel, and after a correspondence of many months, the theologians of Zurich and Geneva came to an agreement on the doctrine of the sacrament of the Supper, and drew up a common formula, which may be seen in Hospinian.—Hist. Sacr., tom. ii. pp. 369, 370. It is very likely, says Ruchat, that this definite formula was the work of Calvin. We recognize his genius in it at least, and we find in it the same ideas and expressions met with in his Liturgy on the Holy Supper.—Hist. de la Réf., tom. v. p. 378. Tho adoption of this formula was the first step towards the union of the Swiss churches, sanctioned two years after the death of Calvin (1566), by the adoption of the famous Helvetic Confession.

[251] See the preceding letter. The negotiations entered into with the Church of Zurich, and already near a close, were prosecuted equally at Berne; but they were encountered there by insurmountable difficulties, arising from the hesitation of the ministers and the policy of the Seigneury. Calvin did not shrink from any concessions which, without causing injury to the integrity of the doctrine, might rally their spirits to union and peace.—Hospinian, tom. ii. p. 370.

[252] In the month of July 1549, the fury of the persecutions was redoubled at Paris and in the provinces, and places of execution were so multiplied everywhere, as if the King had wished, by additional severity, to remove from memory the Edict which he had restored on account of the Vaudeis of Provençe.—Bèze, Hist. Eccl., tom. i. p. 70, et suiv. Notwithstanding all this violence, says Bèze, the churches increased and gathered strength in many places.

[253] Among the number of professors burnt on occasion of the public entrance of the King into Paris, there is found Florent Venot, of Sedano in Brie,—allowed to stand for six weeks in a pit at Chatelet, called the Hippocras' Cup, where it was impossible either to remain lying or standing—and whose firmness overcame the cruelty of the executioners. "You think," he said to them, "by long torment, to weaken the force of the spirit, but you waste your time, and God will enable me to bless his holy name even till my death." Compelled, by a refinement of cruelty, to be a spectator of the torment of his brethren burnt at Paris, he exhorted them by look and gesture before he ascended the pile prepared for him in the Place Maubert.—Hist. des Martyrs, p. 186.

[254] The preceding letter.

[255] Francis Spira, a jurisconsult of Padua, having abjured the Protestant faith through fear of the tortures of the Inquisition, died a short while afterwards in a state of fearful mental anxiety. Paolo Vergerio, an aged Bishop of Pola in Istria, who was led to give up his bishopric that he might live in the free profession of the doctrines of the gospel, among the Grisons, visited Spira on his deathbed, and endeavoured in vain to console this unhappy penitent. Tho history of Spira, written by Vergerio, and translated from the Italian into Latin by Celio Secondo Curione, was published in 1550, with a preface by Calvin.—(Miscellanea Groningana, tom. iii. p. 109.) We have not met with this edition, which is become extremely rare.

[256] We find Calvin's opinion of Vergerio at greater length, in a letter to Farel of July 1550.

[257] Endowed, according to the testimony of his contemporaries, with a powerful and impetuous eloquence which charmed multitudes, and which, with the strong faith with which he was animated, could alone explain his splendid success as a missionary, Farel was abler with the tongue than with the pen, and his various writings, called forth by circumstances, are in general defective. We find in them a few ideas, cast forth at hazard, without plan, in strange disorder, and with a superabundance of explanation, in a diffuse and obscure style. It is not uninteresting to know the judgment which Calvin pronounced upon the works of his friend, and to find in this judgment even a new testimony to the brotherly candour which presided at all times over the intercourse of the two Reformers.—See on the writings of Farel, Senebier, Hist. Litt. tom. i. pp. 148, 149; Sayous, Etudes sur les Ecrivains de la Réformation, tom. i., 1st sketch; and Haag, France Protestante, Art. Farel.

[258] See Note 1, p. 223.

[259] The only work of Farel's mentioned at this date by Senebier, is the following: Le Glaice de la Parole Véritable contre le Bouclier de Défense, duquel un Cordelier s'est voulu servir, in 12mo, Geneva, 1550. It is a vehement reply to a Cordelier who had adopted the sentiments of that spiritual mysticism which leads to a denial of all morality. It presents, besides, the ordinary defects of the works of Farel—confusion and prolixity.

[260] Laurent de Normandie, a Picard gentleman, and Procurator-general at Noyon, had retired to Geneva some months previously, at the request of Calvin, his countryman and friend.—Registers of the Council, 2d May 1549. "Laurent de Normandie retires to this place for the sake of religion, and presses the Council to receive him as an inhabitant, which is granted him."

[261] See the preceding letter.

[262] This is the first time the name of Beza is found mentioned in the correspondence of Calvin. Born on the 24th of June 1519, at Vezelay, in Burgundy, he had left Paris after a brilliant and dissipated youth, to retire to Geneva.—Registers of the Council, 3d May 1549. "Eight French gentlemen, among whom is Theodore Beza, arrive here and obtain permission to remain." Beza was a short time afterwards, made Professor of Greek in the Academy of Lausanne, from which place he wrote to Bullinger:—"The Lord has shewn me this, in the first place, for which may I be able to make my boast in him continually,—that I must prefer the cross to my country, and to all changes of fortune. In the next place, I have received the friendship of Calvin, Viret, Musculus, and Haller; kind Heaven, the friendship of such men! When I think that these are my friends, so far from feeling any inconvenience from exile, I may adopt the saying of Themistocles,—'Perieram nisi periissem.'"—MSS. of Archives of Zurich, Gest. vi. p. 139.

[263] "To John Haller, Pastor of the Bernese Church."

John Haller, of the illustrious family of that name, which reflected so much honour on Switzerland, was born at Zurich in 1523, and became a minister at the age of nineteen, as he informs us himself in his Chronicle. He became the colleague of Musculus, at Augsburg, in 1545, was recalled to Zurich three years afterwards, and, yielding to the pressing solicitations of the Seigneury of Berne, undertook the duties of a minister of that church in 1548. His zeal and talents, together with his prudence, which was remarkable in one so very young, raised him to the highest offices; and before he was quite twenty-nine, he was chosen president of the clergy of Berne, an office which he filled for a long period amidst very trying circumstances.—Ruchat, tom. v. p. 329, et suiv.

[264] See note 2, p. 224.

[265] The ministers of the Pays de Vaud were accustomed to meet weekly to consult about religious matters, and for mutual exhortation. This custom displeased the Seigneurs of Berne, who abolished it by an edict dated 2d September 1549, under pretext that those assemblies, instead of producing edification, engendered disputes, divisions, and disorders. The College of Lausanne protested in vain, through Viret, against this measure, which obtained the approbation of the leading ministers of Berne, notwithstanding the strong representations addressed by Calvin to Haller and Musculus.—Ruchat, tom. v. p. 382, et suiv.

[266] Deposed from the ministry, and appointed Principal of the College of Lausanne, Zebedee ranked among the most violent adversaries of Viret and of Calvin. Numerous testimonies to his animosity against the Reformation will be found in the sequel.

[267] Pope Paul III. died on the 20th November 1549, of grief and rage, on hearing of the treachery of his grandson Octave Farnese, who, to obtain the restitution of Parma, joined the cause of the Emperor against his grandfather.—De Thou, b. vi.; Robertson, b. x.

[268] The title:—To the father of Mademoiselle de Saint-Lorrans. Sans date (1549?) This gentleman retired in the following year to Geneva.

[269] On the back, in the hand writing of Calvin: "To Monsieur the Protector of England.—Sent."

This letter was addressed to the Earl of Somerset after his first disgrace.—(See the letter of the 22d October 1548, and the Note p. 275.) Set at liberty, the 6th February 1550, by the favour of the king his nephew, he resumed his place in the Privy Council, but losing the title and dignity of Protector. The letter of Calvin is without any doubt of February or March 1550.

[270] During his disgrace, which was regarded as a public calamity by the friends of the Reformation in England and throughout Europe, the Duke of Somerset had sought consolation in reading and in pious meditations. He translated into English a work on Patience, to which he added a preface containing the expression of the most elevated sentiments. He received also exhortations from Peter Martyr, and shewed himself no less constant in his attachment to the Gospel, than resigned to the loss of fortune and credit.—See Burnet, History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 184; vol. iii. p. 209, fol. London.

[271] The young King Edward VI. Instructed by the most able masters, this prince gave early proof of a strong mind and of a lively piety. When scarcely fourteen years of age, he set forth in a discourse, of which a fragment has been preserved, the plan of the Reformation in England. He drew up with much care a journal of events which happened during his reign. He composed, besides, a collection of passages of the Old Testament condemning idolatry and image-worship. This collection, written in French, was dedicated by the young King to the Duke of Somerset, his uncle.—Burnet, History of the Reformation, vol. ii. pp. 224, 225.

[272] The letter to the Protector, of January 1550.

[273] See Note 3, pp. 240-1.

[274] The Reformer having attacked the Interim in one of his writings, was accused of Pelagianism by a German theologian, perhaps Flacius Illyricus. He replied to this accusation in a publication entitled, Appendix Libelli de vera Ecclesiæ reformandæ ratione, in qua refutat Censuram quamdam typographi ignoti de parvalorum Sanctificatione et muliebri Baptismo. Geneva, 1550.

[275] The pontifical chair, rendered vacant in the month of November 1549, by the death of Paul III., was occupied in the month of February of the following year by the Cardinal del Monte, who took the name of Julius III. The irregularities of his past life, and the disgraceful accusations which rested on his character, rendered him very unfit to be a reformer of the Church.

[276] On the back: "To the very Illustrious M. Francis Dryander, a Spaniard, at Baslo, with M. Myconius."

Dryander left Strasbourg (for England) in 1548. Melanchthon gave him letters of introduction to King Edward and to Cranmer, by whose patronage he obtained a Chair in the University of Cambridge.—(Zurich Letters, first series, tom. i. p. 349.) At the end of the following year (December 1549) we find Dryander in Strasbourg again. What were his motives for returning to the Continent cannot now be ascertained. See the notice of Dryander, p. 111.

[277] "To Nicolas Colladon, a man distinguished for piety and learning."

Among the numerous French refugees whom persecution led yearly to Geneva, there were none more distinguished than the members of the Colladon family, originally from Berry, where they occupied an eminent position, and are reckoned, even in our own day, among the number of the Genevese aristocracy. Nicolas Colladon, to whom the letter of the Reformer is addressed, was the son of Leon Colladon, the celebrated parliamentary advocate of Bourges, who, with his brother Germain, retired to Geneva in the early part of the year 1551. Long initiated in evangelical doctrine, Nicolas Colladon continued to exercise those pastoral functions in his adopted country, which he had previously performed in Berry. In 1564 he was made Principal of the College of Geneva, and in 1566 succeeded Calvin himself in the chair of theology, without ceasing to discharge his pastoral duties with a zeal which, during the plague of 1570, found a perilous opportunity of signalizing itself. He spent the last years of his life in the Canton de Vaud. The precise date of his death is not known.—Senebier, Hist. Litt., tom. i. p. 398. Galiffe, Notices Généalogiques, tom. ii. p. 566; and Haag, France Protestante, Art Colladon.

[278] In allusion to the various members of the Colladon family, who were contemplating a removal to Geneva.

[279] Anne Colladon, the sister of Nicolas, was on the point of being married to Laurent de Normandie. See Note 1, p. 217.

[280] Three years after the death of Gruet, beheaded for the crime of rebellion and of blasphemy, (see the note p. 226,) there was discovered in a garret of his house a writing in his own hand, of twenty-six pages, which was brought to the magistrates of Geneva. These latter submitted the document to Calvin, who drew up his opinion in the Memorial which we here reproduce, as an undeniable evidence of the religious doctrines and the morals professed by some of the chiefs of the Libertin party.

The writing in question was condemned, the 23d May 1550, as being full of the most detestable blasphemies, and was burnt by the hand of the hangman in front of the house of Gruet.

[281] The proclamation of the Interim plunged Germany into a state of extraordinary confusion. Some towns were so bold as to present remonstrances to the Emperor, and protested against an arbitrary edict, which reprobated alike the partisans of the ancient worship and those of the new. But their voice was not heard, and the greater number of the towns submitted. There were even theologians compliant enough to legitimize this submission. Of this number was Melanchthon, who, by his virtues and his knowledge, deserved the first rank among the Reformed doctors, but who, deprived now of the manly exhortations of Luther, and led away by an excessive love of peace, and by the natural weakness of his character, was making concessions which cannot be justified. Led by his example, and seduced by the artifices of the Elector Maurice, the Assembly of Leipsic declared that in matters purely indifferent we ought to obey the orders of our lawful superiors,—a dangerous principle, which applied to ceremonies, and led to the revival of the grossest and most pernicious errors of the Romish Church. Melanchthon himself wrote a great number of the letters of [Greek: Adiáphoros]Αδιάφορος [indifferent], in support of this doctrine, and his weakness drew down upon him the most violent reproaches from the zealous Lutherans, who accused him of being an accomplice of the enemies of the Gospel.—Sleidan, book xxii.; Robertson, book x. Moved by this sad news, Calvin did not hesitate to blame Melanchthon in a letter addressed to him, in which respect and affection are joined to a just severity.

[282] The town of Magdeburg, then besieged by the army of the Elector Maurice, persisted in rejecting the Interim, and the theologians of that Church flooded Germany with pamphlets, in which Melanchthon was not spared. The Burghers of Magdeburg, put under the ban of the empire, sustained a long siege, and did not submit till the following year.—Sleidan, book xxii.

[283] In a reply to Flacius Illyricus, who maintained that, rather than tolerate the restoration of the Popish ceremonies, he would plunder and destroy the Churches and stir up the people,—"vastitatem faciendam in templis, et metu seditionum terrendos principes." Melanchthon advocated immovable steadfastness in doctrine, submission in everything else.—"In ceremoniis tolerandam aliquam servitutem, quæ tamen sit sine impietate."—Melch. Adam. Vita Melanchthonis, p. 344. But was it possible to submit to the Church of Rome without deserting sound doctrine?

[284] This letter is without date. We discover the date, however, in a letter of Calvin's to Valentin Pacaeus, a doctor of Leipsic, of 18th June 1550, where we meet with these words:—"I make no mention of M. Philip, as I am writing specially to himself."—Calv. Opera, tom. ix. p. 54.

[285] See note 2, p. 175. M. de Falais lived during the summer in a country-seat, situated at Veigy, a small village of Savoy, a few leagues from Geneva.

[286] On the opposite bank of the lake, where rises the delightful eminence of Chambesy, crowned at the present day with beautiful villas.

[287] Paolo Vergerio, one of the missionaries of Reform in Swiss Italy. Born of an illustrious family of Istria, he had successively studied law and oratory, was made Bishop of Istria, and discharged the duties of Pope's legate in Germany. He became a convert to the Gospel through conversations with Melanchthon, abandoned his diocese, and retired among the Grisons. He died in 1565.

[288] There is a beautiful letter from Bucer to Calvin, [Calvini Opera, tom. ix. p. 58,] dated from Cambridge, and containing curious details regarding the religious state of England. We find this passage in it relative to the young King Edward VI.,—"Increase in prayer in behalf of the most serene King, who is making quite wonderful progress in pious and literary studies."

[289] See the preceding letter.

[290] We find no allusion to this fact in the Registers of the Council of that year. But Ruchat mentions, after Roset, the arrest of one Jean Baptiste Didaco, Receiver-General of Finance at Rouen, who, having been imprisoned at Geneva at the impeachment of one of his domestics, was released at the request of the King of France, and of the Bernese, after three months' imprisonment.—Ruchat, tom. v. pp. 311, 313.

[291] The nature of this tax is not known; it was set on foot in the localities belonging to the ancient territory of the Chapter of Saint Victor, and shared between the jurisdiction of the two republics.

[292] Commentarii in Iesaiam Prophetam. In fol. Geneva, 1550. A work dedicated to the King of England.

[293] In omnes Pauli Epistolas atque etiam in Epistolam ad Hebraeos Commentarii. In fol. Geneva, 1550. With a preface by Theodore Beza.

[294] The title:—To William Rabot, "Dictus a Salena" of Avignon.

It appears from a letter of Rabot's to Calvin, preserved in the Library of Gotha, that, exiled from his native country from conscientious motives, this young man was then engaged in the study of law at the University of Padua, in company with a number of gentlemen, among others Charles de Jonvillers, Francis and Louis de Budé, &c. Their studies were intermingled with religious discourses, which contributed to the spread of the Gospel in certain distinguished families, among which we remark that of Contarini, originally of Padua. The increasing rigours of persecution soon scattered this focus of Evangelism, and led some of those youthful missionaries to Geneva, where Charles de Jonvillers, one of their number, gained the friendship of Calvin, and became his secretary.—Divers MSS. of Gotha and of Geneva.

[295] The Treatise on Scandals, one of the most remarkable of Calvin's writings appeared this same year, with a beautiful dedication addressed by Calvin to Laurent de Normandie, his old and constant friend. It was published at first in Latin, under the following title:—De Scandalis quibus hodie plerique absterrentur, nonnulli etiam alienantur a pura Evangelii Doctrina. Geneva, 1550. This work was translated into French by Latern during the following year. It is to be found in tom. viii. of his Opera, and in the Recueil des Opuscules, p. 1145.

[296] Henry II. of France, to gain the good-will of the cantons, pretended at that time to take a lively interest in the protection of Geneva, menaced by the Duke of Savoy and the Emperor of Germany. He even informed the magistrates of the republic regarding certain plots, real or imaginary, laid for its destruction.—Registers of the Council, 1549, 1550, passim.

[297] The Emperor Charles V. published, at that time, his bloody edict against the Protestants, Lutherans, Zuinglians, and others, and seemed to be preparing himself for a general crusade against the Reformed Churches.—Sleidan, book xxii.

[298] See note 3, p. 277.

[299] This passage in the letter is addressed to Christopher Fabri, or Libertet, a colleague of Farel's at Neuchatel.

[300] Calvin had stood godfather to one of the daughters of Libertet, whose wife he habitually called by the familiar name of my godmother.

[301] Saddened by his exile, and tormented by a malady under which he sunk the year following, Bucer complained bitterly of being continually the object of an unjust suspicion to the theologians of Zurich, and of being neglected by his friends in Switzerland.

[302] Two of the keenest adversaries of the Reformation in France.

[303] See note 2, p. 283. Having left Strasbourg at the same time as Bucer and Fagius, John Utenhoven went to London, where he resided for many years before going to exercise the ministry in Poland. See his correspondence with Bullinger, (1549-1554,) Zurich Letters, first series, toms. i. and ii.

[304] John Laski, (Joannes a Lasco,) a Polish nobleman devoted to the cause of the Reformation, who had preached successively in Poland, in Germany, and in England. In the reign of Edward VI. he rose to great favour in the latter country, and was appointed superintendent of the congregation of foreign Protestants in London.—Zurich Letters, first series, tom. i. p. 187.

[305] "I am glad your Commentary on Isaiah, and also the Canonical Epistles, are designed for our king; and I do not doubt but that, even from your letter to him, very considerable benefit will accrue to the English king."—Utenhoven to Calvin. Paris MSS. Recueil Historique de France, tom. xix.

[306] See Calvin's letter to the King of England, of January 1551.

[307] Louis de Budé, Sieur de la Motte, brother of John de Budé, was particularly versed in Oriental languages, of which he was made professor at Geneva, a short time after his arrival in that town. He died in 1552. We have of his a Psautier traduit de l'Hebreu en Français. 8vo. Geneva, 1550.

[308] The celebrated printer Robert Etienne, (Stephens,) a man of the purest reputation, who lived in an age which failed to recognize his genius, and which rewarded his labours with ingratitude. Having become odious to the clergy by his beautiful editions of the Bible, and by his desire for reform, and but ill protected by the King of France against the vexations of the Sorbonne, he resolved to quit his country and remove his presses to Geneva, whither the printer Crespin had already preceded him. He arrived there towards the end of the year 1550, with his son Henry, who afterwards shed a new lustre on the name of Stephens. He publicly embraced the cause of the Reformation, together with the members of his family, and honoured his adopted country by the publication of various works of antiquity, both sacred and profane. Made a burgess of Geneva in 1556, he lived in constant intimacy with Calvin and Beza, until his death in 1559.—Senebier, Hist. Litt., pp. 355, 356; Haag. France Protestante, Art. Estienne.

[309] In allusion to a tolerably numerous party in France, who, on receiving the Gospel, believed they might remain united in external communion with the Romish Church, and escape persecution by an apparent adhesion to its dogmas.

[310] After leaving Bâle, and his establishment at Geneva, (July 1548). This seigneur lived in the village of Veigy, situated several leagues from the city, between Hermance and Les Voirons.

[311] In allusion to the misconduct of a servant of Monsieur de Falais.

[312] We read in the MS. Chronicle of Michael Roset, lib. v. chap. 27, "By advice of the ministers, April 3, 1550, it was enacted, that an annual visitation be maintained from house to house, for the examination of men and women as to their faith, in order to discern between the ignorant, and hardened sinners, and true Christians, which in time has wrought great benefit."

[313] See the notice, p. 249.

In a reaction, perhaps exaggerated, against the practices of the Romish Church, the magistrates of Geneva were led to adopt a measure which made a great noise among the Swiss Protestants. While Berne and Zurich celebrated the four great feasts of the year, according to the ancient Catholic custom, the Genevese abolished the weekday feasts, and kept nothing but the Sabbath. This measure, in which Calvin had no hand whatever, and of which he, in some degree, even disapproved, was made nevertheless the subject of very violent personal declamations against him. Some even accused him of wishing to abolish the Sabbath. In letters to his friends, Haller, Bullinger, and some others, he thought it his duty to represent the true character of the reform effected at Geneva, and his real relation to it. He had little difficulty in obtaining the approbation of Bullinger, who replied to him in these words: "You have just given the answer which I expected, my dear brother. For I know that in matters of that sort, where duty is but little heeded, and much ill-will is engendered, you have never been morose. I am anxious, indeed, in such matters, to see that liberty preserved, which I perceive to have flourished in the churches from the very days of the apostles." ...—Calvini Opera, tom. ix. p. 63.

[314] The plague, which had cut off Hedio, the pious minister at Strasbourg, made great ravages at Berne during the same year. It entered the houses of Wolfgang Musculus, and of John Haller, although they escaped themselves. A great number of the ministers of the Church of Berne sunk under the attacks of this awful scourge.—Ruchat, tom. v. p. 470. The Chronique of Haller, cited by Hottinger.

[315] Ruchat, who reproduces this letter, (tom. v. p. 441,) considers that the name here suppressed is that of Pierre Kontzen, a minister of Berne, who presided, in 1538, at the Synod of Lausanne.

[316] Always attentive to regulate by ordinances the different points of religious and ecclesiastical life, the Seigneurs of Berne had just published (Dec. 1550) new edicts more rigorous than those which had preceded them. These edicts were especially directed against the gross notions and certain customs of the Papists, which Berne punished by fine. Indulgent to the taking of oaths, of which the custom was generally disseminated among the Catholic population subject to their dominion, the Seigneurie seemed to reserve all their severity for the offence of not observing the feasts abolished at Geneva.

[317] This abolition, which was at a later period to provoke such warm debates between Berne and Geneva, had been pronounced the 16th Nov. 1550.

[318] Richard Le Fèvre, a native of Rouen, one of the martyrs of the Reformed Church of Lyons. Seized in that town in 1551, and condemned to death, he appealed thence to the Parliament of Paris, and was delivered in transitu by some unknown friends. Surprised, two years afterwards, at Grenoble, he was brought back to the dungeons of Lyons, saw his first sentence confirmed by the Parliament of Paris, and went cheerfully to the stake the 7th July 1551. He wrote on the 3d of May to Calvin,—"The present is to let you know, that I hope to go to keep Whitsuntide in the kingdom of heaven, and to be present at the marriage of the Son of God, ... if I am not sooner called away by this good Lord and Master, whose voice i am ready to obey, when he shall say, Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you before the foundation of the world."—(The original autograph letter, Library of Geneva, Vol. 109.) During his first captivity at Lyons, Richard Le Fèvre had consulted Calvin on some points of doctrine, and had received pious exhortations from him regarding them.

[319] In an assembly which met at Neuchatel on the 14th of March 1551, the number of individuals who should compose the Consistory was fixed, and a collection of regulations regarding marriage was drawn out.

[320] The translation of the Psalms begun by Clement Marot, was continued by Theodore Boza, who obtained, during this same year, the authority of the Council of Geneva for the publication of a part of his work.

[321] Edward VI., son of Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour, King of England, born in 1537, died, in his sixteenth year, the 8th of July 1553. Gifted with a precocious strength of reason, and a lively sensibility, instructed in the ancient languages and foreign literature, this young prince did not live long enough to realize the hopes to which his accession to the throne had given birth. "His virtues," says the historian Hume, "had made him an object of tender affection to the public. He possessed mildness of disposition, application to study and business, a capacity to learn and judge, and an attachment to equity and justice." Devotional reading had a particular attraction for this prince, who was heartily devoted to the cause of the Reformation. Calvin dedicated two of his commentaries to him: "Joannis Calvini Commentarii in Iesaiam Prophetam, Eduardo VI., Angliæ Regi, 8 Cal. Januarii 1551." "Joannis Calvini Commentarii in Epistolas Canonicas." The dedication of the first of these commentaries (25th December 1550) furnishes us the date of the letter of Calvin, written in the month of January 1551, and brought to the King by the minister, Nicolas des Gallars.

[322] The privilege granted by King Edward VI. to the Church of the foreign Protestants instituted at London 1550. The royal patent was thus expressed:—"Considering that it is the duty of a Christian prince well to administer the affairs of his kingdom, to provide for religion, and for the unhappy exiles, afflicted and banished by reason thereof, we would have you to know, that having compassion of the condition of those who have for some considerable time past been domiciled in our kingdom, and come there daily, of our special grace ... will and ordain that henceforward they may have in our city of London a church, to be called the Church of the Lord Jesus, where the assembly of the Germans and other strangers can meet and worship, for the purpose of having the Gospel purely interpreted by the ministers of their church, and the Sacraments administered according to the word of God and the apostolic ordinance."

[323] The agreement concluded two years before, between the Churches of Geneva and of Zurich, on the question of the Sacraments, had been a source of joy to all the sober-minded in Switzerland and in Germany, who had deplored the excesses of the sacramental quarrel. But it displeased the intemperate Lutheran party, who accused Calvin of fickleness, and went so far as to charge him with having changed his opinions, and with squaring his doctrine to that of Zuingle, since the defeat of the Protestant party in Germany. This was nothing but a calumny, which is removed by a comparison of the previous writings of Calvin upon the Supper, with the formula drawn up under his care and which he was desirous should be published at Zurich.—Ruchat, tom. v. p. 379.

[324] Some have erroneously fixed on 1549 as the date of this publication. Delayed by the theologians of Zurich it was only finished in 1551, under the title—Consensio mutua in re Sacramentaria ministrorum Tigurinæ Ecclesiæ et D. Joannis Calvini Ministri Genevensis Ecclesiæ. Zurich, 8vo. Caused by Calvin to be translated into French the following year, this important document figures in the Recueil des Opuscules, p. 1137, with a preface by Calvin to the Ministers and Doctors of the Church of Zurich.

[325] Under this title, Bullinger had commenced publishing a series of discourses concerning the principal points of the Christian religion.

[326] See the letter to the king, p. 299.

[327] Having returned to England the previous year, and having been appointed Bishop of Gloucester through the patronage of Cranmer, Hooper was imprisoned and suffered a few days of captivity for having refused to wear, at the time of his consecration, the sacerdotal dress then in use in the English Church. See his correspondence with Bullinger, Zurich Letters, 1537-1558, tom. i. p. 9; Burnet, vol. i.

[328] After having proscribed the Reformed worship in the town of Augsburg, the Emperor took up his quarters at Inspruck, among the valleys of the Tyrol, from which he could keep an eye at once upon the Council of Trent, Germany, and Italy.—Robertson, book x.

[329] Bullinger had presented the King of England with his third and fourth Decade, (see note 1, p. 306,) with a long letter, in which he reminds the young king of the duties which he had to fulfil towards his subjects. "This epistle and book were presented to the King by the hands of Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, personally acquainted with Bullinger, to whom the King declared his good acceptance thereof, and the respect and esteem he had for the reverend author."—Strype, Memoir, vol. ii. pp. 390, 394.

[330] The letter here referred to has escaped all our investigations, and appears to be entirely lost.

[331] One of the first acts of the new Pope, Julius III, was to decree the re-assembly of the Council of Trent, on the 1st of May 1551. This session, termed the eleventh—eight having been held at Trent and two at Bologna—was without result. The fathers resolved upon fixing that there should not be another assembly until the 1st of September.—Fra Paolo, Hist. du Concile de Trente, lib. iv. sect. i.

[332] An invitation to the Council was, in point of fact, addressed by the Pope to the Cantons, with all sorts of flattering words, to induce them to comply. The theologians of Zurich, appointed to draw up a reply, had little difficulty in showing that the Council was not for the advantage of the Swiss, or for the good of religion, and the Reformed Cantons adopted unanimously the conclusions of the theologians, and refused to send deputies to the Council.—Ruchat, tom. v. p. 426.

[333] The year 1551 was marked by two grievous losses to the Reformed churches of Europe. Bucer, overcome by the sorrows of exile, died in England on the 28th of February, and the decease of Joachim Vadian, one of the most brilliant minds of that age, occurred at Saint Gall during the same year. The earliest notice of Bucer's death is to be found in the Journal of King Edward VI. of England:—"February 28th.—The learned man Bucerus died at Cambridge, who was two days after buried in St. Mary's Church, all the whole University, with the whole town, bringing him to the grave, to the number of three thousand persons. Also there was an oration of Mr. Haddon made very elegantly at his death...." &c.—Zurich Letters, first series, tom. ii. p. 492. Vadian, cut off in the prime of life, breathed his last in the arms of his friend Kessler, the poet, leaving behind him a name held in deep veneration by his friends and countrymen. Above two thousand of the present inhabitants of Saint Gall claim the honour of being descended from the burgomaster Vadian. See the notice of him given in the present collection, vol. i. p. 475.

[334] Nicolas des Gallars.

[335] In a letter to Calvin of the 25th May preceding, Farel gave eloquent expression to his sorrow at the death of Bucer:—"I have at length received the last letter of the pious Bucer. What a spirit! How calmly he sunk down! We must mingle joy with our sorrow, inasmuch as our friend has gone up to God."—Library of Paris. Recueil Historique de France, tom. xix.

[336] A man of distinguished learning, an accomplished statesman, and an able negotiator, as well as a theologian, and an admirable poet, Joachim Vadian left as wide a blank in the political councils, as he did in the churches of his country. He had been elected eleven times to the office of Burgomaster of Saint Gall.—See Melchior Adam, Vitæ Medicorum Germanorum; and the Theatrum of Pauli Freheri, tom. ii. pp. 1231, 1232.

[337] An allusion to a recent work of Osiander's On Justification, which gave rise to keen controversy in Germany.—See the Correspondence of Calvin with Melanchthon in 1552.

[338] By all appearance Amy Perrin.

[339] The number of refugees daily increasing at Geneva, permission was grantod them to assemble together for public worship in their own languages. English was preached at the Auditoire, Italian at the College, Spanish at Saint Gervais, and Flemish in Saint Germain. The unity of the Spirit shone through the diversity of languages.—Spon and Picot, Histoire de Genève.

[340] The Pope and the King of France were at that time engaged in a struggle about the town of Parma, which the former wished to plunder, and the latter to defend in behalf of Ottavio Farneso. Tho Emperor was not slow in joining the cause of the Pope, and peace was not concluded till the following year.

[341] This letter without an address, was written to a friend, perhaps to one of the members of the family of Beza in France, during an illness which endangered his life, in 1551, and which called forth from the Reformer the most touching testimonies of his affection.

[342] See the letter to the King of the month of January, p. 299. The ministor, Nicolas des Gallars, charged to present to the King the letter and the Commentaries of Calvin, had met with the most flattering reception at Court.*

*See Calvin's letter to Farel, p. 311, ante.

[343] Calvin published his treatise, De Æterna Dei Praedestinatione, during the following year, in reply to certain attacks directed against this doctrine by an Italian Doctor named George of Sicily, and the German theologian, Albert Pighius, whom he had already assailed in 1543.—(See vol. i. p. 371 of the present Collection.) Little is known regarding George of Sicily. Suspected by the Catholics on account of his professing certain of the Reformed doctrines, and by the Protestants from his holding certain heterodox opinions, he was disclaimed alike by both of those Churches, and ultimately fell a victim to the Inquisition, at Ferrara.—MSS. of the Library of Ferrara.

[344] Notwithstanding the interested advances made by the King of France to the Swiss Cantons, and despite his alliance with the Protestants of Germany, the persecutions did not terminate in France. A minister of the district of Neuchatel, originally from the neighbourhood of Mans, named Hugues Gravier, having undertaken a journey to his native country, was arrested at the bridge of Maçon, and, after a long imprisonment, condemned to the flames, notwithstanding the intervention of the Seigneurs of Berne in his behalf. He submitted to this cruel torture at Bourg-en-Bresse, with wonderful firmness; and his death, says the historian of the Martyrs, was the means of forming a nursery of the faithful throughout the entire neighbourhood.—Hist. des Martyrs, p. 234, anno 1552. Hist. Eccl., p. 86.

[345] The new opinions made every day fresh progress in France, in spite of the rigour of the edicts, and the severity of the judges. Inspired by the evil spirit of Cardinals Tournon and Lorraine, the King resorted to measures of great cruelty. The Edict of Chateaubriand, issued on the 27th of June 1551, declared Protestants amenable at once to ecclesiastical and civil tribunals, so that if absolved by the jurisdiction of the one, they were liable to condemnation by that of the other! This was a violation of the laws of the most ordinary justice; but at a time when the Emperor, aided by the heretic Maurice of Saxony, was attacking the Pope, the King of France could not give too strong a pledge of his orthodoxy. The blood of the disciples of the Gospel flowed like water, to expiate the alliance of this persecuting monarch with the Lutherans of Germany.—Haag, France Protestante, Introduction, p. x.

[346] There were at that time proposals of marriage between the young King Edward, and Elizabeth of France, daughter of Henry II., but the negotiations relative to that match wore without result.—Burnet, History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 282, (Nares' Edition.)

[347] Calvin, referring to the same circumstance in a letter to Viret, (Aug. 1551,) expressed himself thus:—"An ignorant monk, from an obscure village, disparaged me. A ridiculous affair. He was a demagogue, who from the front of the platform, bawled out that we were worse than the Papists, and brought forward a paper before the Consistory, written by himself, in which he accused me, by name, of teaching what was false and contrary to the word of God; called me an impostor; babbled out that those who agreed with me held impious opinions," &c.—(Calv. Opera, vol. ix. p. 61.) From these last traits, we recognize the same obscure individual, who made bold to bring forward such accusations against Calvin, and whose disputes with the Reformer were soon to acquire a sad notoriety over all Switzerland. This man was Jerome Bolsec!—See the following letter.

[348] At a general meeting, held October 16, 1551, the minister of Jussy, Jean de Saint André, in preaching from the words of St. John, (viii. 47,) "He that is of God heareth God's words ...," took occasion to develope the doctrine of eternal election, declaring that "those who are not regenerated by the Spirit of God, continue in a state of rebellion even to the end, because obedience is a gift accorded only to the elect." He had scarcely finished speaking when one of the hearers rose up, and pronounced this doctrine false and impious, accompanying his discourse with coarse abuse of those who make God the author of sin, and exhorted the people to guard against this new doctrine as a detestable piece of folly. This man was the old Carmelite monk, Jerome Bolsec, a physician, preacher, and poet, who, wandering by turns in France and Italy, had retired to Geneva some months previously, where he had already frequently attacked the doctrines of Calvin. Unnoticed in the crowd, the Reformer, whom Bolsec had thought absent, immediately rose up, and by a succession of testimonies borrowed from the writings of Augustine, eloquently refuted his adversary. Arrested on account of the temerity of his language, and interrogated by the magistrate, Jerome refused to retract, and was thrown into prison. The case was brought before the Council, where he boldly maintained his opinion, adding, besides, that many of the Swiss ministers shared in his sentiments. Before pronouncing a judgment, which the ministers of Geneva earnestly desired, the magistrates wrote concerning the subject to three Reformed towns, namely, Zurich, Berne, and Bâle, furnishing them with a list of the errors of Bolsec, and asking their advice as to how they should treat him. See the Registers of the Council, Oct. 1551; Gautier, Manuscript History of Geneva, and Ruehat, tom. v. p. 456.

[349] This is Calvin's last letter to Myconius. Struck by apoplexy while in the pulpit of the Cathedral of Bâle, a few days before the Easter festivals of 1551, Myconius never rallied, till he was carried off by the plague in October 1552, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. His bereaved widow survived him only a few days. Simon Sulzer succeeded him in the office of Antistes which he had filled during more than ten years with moderation and wisdom.—See Melch. Adam, Vitæ Theol. Germ., p. 224; Ruchat, tom. v. p. 468.

[350] Alluding to the reply expected from the ministers of Bâle, concerning the case of Bolsec. See the preceding letter.

[351] See letter, p. 319.

[352] "To Mons. Christopher Fabri, minister of the Word of God in the Church of Neufchatel."

The theologians of Bâle were the first to communicate their sentiments regarding the case of Bolsec. In a letter dated 28th November, they openly acknowledged the doctrine which was the occasion of the dispute. They regarded election as "the effect of a secret cause, known to God alone, and which man should not attempt to fathom." So far as Bolsec himself was concerned, they were inclined to treat him with indulgence, deceiving thereby the hopes of the Reformer, who desired a triumphant condemnation of his adversary.

[353] In the theological disputes between Calvin and Bolsec, M. de Falais declared himself in favour of the latter, from whom he received medical advice. He had even written a letter to Bâle in his behalf.

[354] See the preceding letter, p. 327.

[355] The theologians of Zurich, like those of Bâle, did not hesitate to profess adherence to the doctrine attacked by Bolsec. "Jerome," said they, "deceives himself and wrongs Zuingle, if he believes that the latter taught that God himself was the cause of man's sinning; for if he appeared to teach something similar to that in his book on The Providence of God, we must, at the same time, consult his other writings, where he has plainly established that sin comes by no means from God, but from human corruption and voluntary wickedness." Addressed to the Councils of Geneva by an oversight which the ministers of that church seemed keenly to feel, the answer from Zurich did not appear to Calvin to be a sufficiently explicit condemnation of his adversary. See the letter to Bullinger of January 1552.

[356] Lelio Socin, founder of the celebrated sect which bears his name, was born at Sienna of a distinguished family: his father, Mariano Socin, a professor in the University of Bologna, was one of the most learned jurisconsults of his age. Of a bold and active mind, which found pleasure in the most subtle speculations, and which would not stop short of the interpretation of mysteries, Lelio left his native country in 1548, and joined the Reformers of Switzerland and Germany, whose friendship he won by the politeness of his manners, the purity of his life, and his zeal for learning. He resided by turns at Zurich and Wittemberg, and was not slow, by correspondence or conversation, to express his doubts on the common doctrines, which he skilfully advanced rather in the form of questions than as opinions which he was prepared to maintain and to teach. He was beloved by Bullinger, who did not suspect the heterodoxy of his beliefs, and who wrote to Calvin regarding him, "I restrain as far as I can this man's curiosity;" and Calvin himself, after having repeatedly broken off correspondence with Socin, could not forbear renewing it, and giving a friendly reply to the doubts which he had expressed on the resurrection, baptism, the trinity, &c. (Calv. Opera, tom. ix. pp. 51, 57, 197.) The letter, which is published here for the first time, throws valuable light on the relation of the Reformer to the founder of a sect to which even Socin himself was yet a stranger, and whose doubts were afterwards to be set up as dogmas by his disciples. Lelio Socin died in 1562, before he had completed his thirty-seventh year.—M'Crie, Hist. of Ref. in Italy, passim.

[357] This letter, without a date, appears to us to belong to the last months of the year 1551. Lelio Socin was living at that time at Wittemberg.—M'Crie, Hist. of the Ref. in Italy, p. 430.

[358] The magistrates of Geneva, after having received the advice of the leading Swiss Churches,—which were unanimous alike in their recognition of the doctrine of election, and in soliciting indulgence for Bolsec,—proceeded with the trial of the prisoner, who, having refused to retract his opinions, was solemnly banished on the 23d December 1551, for having persisted in an obstinate despisal of the judgment of the Churches to which he had promised submission.—(Registers of the Council, Dec. 1551. Spon and Picot, Histoire de Genève.) Calvin did not wish the sentence to be more severe, although he counted on the Swiss Churches taking a more energetic course, and in the ardour of his zeal for what he regarded as sound doctrine, looked upon all hesitation and all weakness as a cowardly abandonment of the truth.

[359] In their reply to the ministers of Geneva concerning Bolsec, the ministers of Berne freely pleaded the cause of toleration:—"We do not believe," said they, "that it is necessary to treat those who err with too much severity, lest while wishing to defend, with too great zeal, the purity of dogmas, we swerve from the law of Jesus Christ, that is, from charity.... Jesus Christ loved the truth, but he loved souls also; not only those who advanced without declension, but also those who went astray. And it is the latter of which the Good Shepherd, in the Gospel parable, takes the greatest care."... More explicit than the theologians of Zurich and of Bâle on the doctrine which formed the ground of the debate, the ministers of Berne gave a deliverance against the doctrine of predestination:—"To come," said they, "to the subject of dispute with Bolsec, you are not ignorant how much vexation it has caused very many good men, of whom we cannot have a bad opinion, who reading in the Scriptures those passages which exalt the grace of God to all men, have not sufficient discernment rightly to understand the true mysteries of Divine election, attach themselves to the proclamation of grace and of universal benevolence, and think that we cannot make God condemn, harden, and blind any man, without being guilty of the insupportable blasphemy of making God himself the author both of man's blindness and of his perdition, and by consequence of all sin."—See this letter, and those of the Churches of Zurich and Bâle, in the Collection of Professor Alph. Turretin, entitled, Nubes Testium, and in Ruchat, tom. v. p. 461, et seq.

[360] This minister was banished shortly after beyond the territory of the Seigneurs of Berne on account of this expression.

[361] Farel was a genuine orator. All his contemporaries speak with admiration of his eloquent discourses, of his beautiful exhortations, and of his prayers, so fervent, that no one could hear them without being charmed. But it appears that his discourses were all extempore; none of them have been preserved, but they had a few of the defects of improvisation. Their fault was prolixity. Calvin, in his preface to the Psalms, paid, among other things, a brilliant tribute to the eloquence of his friend, and to those thunders of the word (tonitrua) by which he had been enchained at Geneva.

[362] In Calvin's own hand.

[363] Without date. The end is wanting. We believe that this letter refers to the first month of the year 1552.

[364] Who is the personage to whom these words refer, stamped at once by the inflexible spirit of the time and the stern rigour of the Reformer? The historian can only offer conjectures: can it be Jerome Bolsec? But a regular sentence had banished him from Geneva, and Calvin himself does not appear to have called for a more severe judgment against this innovator whom resentment had transformed into a vile pamphleteer. "That fellow, Jerome, is driven out into perpetual exile by a public sentence. Certain revilers have spread abroad the falsehood, that we earnestly desired a much severer punishment, and foolishly, it is believed."—(Calvin to Bullinger, in the month of January 1552.) In that age of inexorable severity against unsound doctrine, Servetus only appeared at Geneva to expire at the stake, and Gentili only escaped the scaffold for a time, by the voluntary retraction of his opinions. To name Gentili, Servetus, Bolsec, is to recall the principal victims of Calvinistic intolerance in the sixteenth century, but not to solve the mystery which attaches to the personage designated in the letter of Calvin to Madame de Cany.

[365] Theodore Beza, then professor of Greek literature in the Academy of Lausanne. Born the 24th June 1519, at Véselay in Burgundy, he had left Paris after a brilliant and dissipated youth, and retired to Geneva the 24th October 1548, giving up the possession of the rich benefices which he held of his uncle, the Abbé of Froidmont. Of this number was the priory of Londjumeau, which became the matter of a tedious lawsuit between Beza and the new titular, M. de Sunistan, the protégé of the Duchesse d'Etampes.

[366] Anne de Pisseleu, Duchesse d'Etampes. She was a sister of Madame de Cany.

[367] Laurent de Normandie. See note 1, p. 311.

This passage seems to refer to an edition of the Psalms translated into French verse by Theodore Beza, earlier than that which is mentioned by Senebier.—(Histoire Littéraire de Genève, tom. i. p. 289.—Septante-Neuf Pseaulmes mis en Rithme Française, Quarante-Neuf par Clement Marot, avec le Cantique de Siméon et les Dix Commandements, in 24. Genève, chez Simon de Bosc, 1556.) M. Picot, Hist. de Genève, tom. ii. p. 7, mentions an edition of the Psalms, published in 1551. We know that the first complete edition, for the use of the Reformed Churches, appeared at Lyons in 1562, with the "Privilège du Roi."

[368] Despite Calvin's disagreements with the magistrates of Berne and the Helvetic Churches, he did not hesitate to undertake a journey to them in the month of March 1552, which the seriousness of the circumstances demanded, in order to plead the cause, among the Cantons, of the French Protestants, who were then in a most deplorable condition. "This year," says Ruchat, "the King of France carried his persecution of the Reformers, even to the death, so to speak: and those faithful subjects, who wished only to be allowed to serve God in liberty of conscience, were subjected to the violence of his officers, who acted like so many unchained furies. The flames were kindled, the wheel and the gallows were erected at all the tribunals. The Protestant States of the empire, and the four Reformed Cantons, wore active in their intercessions with the King, by means of special ambassadors, in behalf of these poor persecuted ones; but all their prayers were useless." (Hist. de la Réf., tom. v. p. 479.) The King, on advising the Cantons to abstain from any further approaches to him, declared that he wished to be allowed to remain his own master, and to act as he pleased, and for them to refrain in future, lest those cities continued this business at their own peril; ... that they were at liberty to govern their own cities as they thought proper; that, for his own part, he wished, without let or hindrance, to do the same in his own kingdom, because he intended by all means to purge it of those seditious men.—(Bullinger to Calvin, tom. ix. p. 68.) This last epithet was a calumny. Yet he continued, nevertheless, to persecute the faithful of France as seditious and as rebels, because they desired to serve and to worship God according to his word.

[369] See note 1, Vol. i. p. 439.

"This good bishop," says Beza, "agreeing to persecute those whom he formerly defended as far as he could, was made Bishop of Orleans, whither God attended him on his journey. For on the eve of his entrée, he went, as the custom was, to the Monastery called Saint Iverte, and entered a pulpit to preach; there was a very great number of people present, and whilst uttering harsh threats against those termed heretics, he was seized with a colic so sudden and severe, that being carried away he died a miserable death on the following night, and made his entrée elsewhere than at Orleans."—Hist. Eccl., tom. i. p. 81.

[370] Doubtless the writing published by Calvin and his colleagues, entitled, "Congrégation faite en l'Eglise de Genève sur la Matière de l'élection éternelle." Geneva, 1552, 8vo.

[371] The Marquis de Vico, a Neapolitan nobleman, retired to Geneva. He was admitted an inhabitant of the city, "after having promised to submit to the laws of the magistrates, and to live in the profession of the Reformed religion."—Registers of Council, 15th June 1551.

[372] Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of England, took an important part in the Reformation of his country during the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. He laboured assiduously with the Reformers of the Continent, who esteemed his learning and honoured his character, to establish a bond of union between the foreign churches and his own; and if he did not live to see his efforts crowned with success, he at least left behind him an example worthy of imitation. What is most notable in these endeavours is to be found in Cranmer's Letters to the leading theologians of Switzerland and Germany, reproduced in the Collections of his Works published by the Parker Society. They are likewise to be found in the Collection of Zurich Letters, 1st series, vol. i. p. 21-26, from which we borrow the following letter to Calvin, which furnishes us with the date of the Reformer's reply to the Prelate:—"As nothing tends more injuriously to the separation of the Churches than heresies and disputes respecting the doctrines of religion, so nothing tends more effectually to unite the Churches of God, and more powerfully to defend the fold of Christ, than the pure teaching of the Gospel and harmony of doctrine. Wherefore I have often wished, and still continue to do so, that learned and godly men, who are eminent for erudition and judgment, might meet together, and, comparing their respective opinions, might handle all the heads of ecclesiastical doctrine, and hand down to posterity, under the weight of their authority some work not only upon the subjects themselves, but upon the forms of expressing them. Our adversaries are now holding their councils at Trent, for the establishment of their errors; and shall we neglect to call together a godly synod, for the refutation of error, and for restoring and propagating the truth? They are, as I am informed, making decrees respecting the worship of the host; wherefore we ought to leave no stone unturned, not only that we may guard others against this idolatry, but also that we may ourselves come to an agreement upon the doctrine of this sacrament. It cannot escape your prudence how exceedingly the Church of God has been injured by dissensions and varieties of opinion respecting the sacrament of unity; and though they are now in some measure removed, yet I could wish for an agreement in this doctrine, not only as regards the subject itself, but also with respect to the words and forms of expression. You have now my wish, about which I have also written to Masters Philip [Melanchthon] and Bullinger; and I pray you to deliberate among yourselves as to the means by which this synod can be assembled with the greatest convenience. Farewell.—Your very dear brother in Christ,

"Thomas Cantuar.

"Lambeth, 20th March 1552."

Calvin could only subscribe to the wishes so nobly expressed by Cranmer, and which harmonized so well with the most elevated sentiments of the Reformer of Geneva.

[373] Alluding to the unfortunate controversies raised by Osiander in Germany on the doctrine of Justification.

[374] See the eloquent appeal addressed to Bullinger, ante, pp. 329, 341. The latter had written to Calvin, giving him an account of the fruitless efforts of the Cantons with Henry II., and of the haughty response of that monarch: "He lives who delivered his people from Egypt; he lives who brought back the captivity from Babylon; he lives who defended his Church against Cæsars, kings, and profligate princes. Verily we must needs pass through many afflictions into the kingdom of God. But woe to those who touch the apple of God's eye."—Calv. Opera, tom. ix. p. 68.

[375] See the following Letter.

[376] In the month of April 1552, five young Frenchmen, instructed at the school of theology of Lausanne, and devoted to the functions of the ministry, made arrangements for returning to their own country. These were Martial Alba of Montauban, Peter Ecrivain of Gascony, Charles Favre of Blanzac in Angoumois, Peter Navihères of Limousin, and Bernard Seguin of La Reole. After having spent some days at Geneva, they set out for Lyons, and met on the way at the Bourg de Colognes, nigh to L'Ecluse, a stranger, who offered himself as their fellow-traveller. They consented without harbouring any suspicion. Arrived at Lyons, they parted with their travelling companion, who pressed them to visit him at his dwelling of Ainay. They went thither without any distrust, were arrested and led away to the prisons of that jurisdiction. Such was the origin of a long and doleful process, which held the Churches of France and Switzerland for a long time in suspense, and during which, the blood-thirsty cruelty of the judges was only equalled by the constancy of the victims. On the first rumour of the arrest of the five students, the Church of Geneva took the matter up, and lavished upon the captives, by the voice of Calvin, the most lively testimonies of their sympathy.

[377] Calvin wrote this letter to King Edward VI., when dedicating to him the following little work: Four Sermons of Master John Calvin, treating of matters very profitable for our time, with a Brief Exposition of Psalm lxxxvii. Geneva, 1552, in 8vo, inserted in the Recueil des Opuscules, p. 824. These four sermons have been translated at different times into English. In the first, Calvin exhorts the faithful to flee from idolatry; in the second, he encourages them to suffer everything for Jesus Christ; in the third, he shews how highly believers ought to prize the privilege of being in the Church of God, where they are at liberty to worship him purely; in the last, he shews that this liberty cannot be purchased at too high a price.

[378] An error in the original; we must read 87th.

[379] For a facsimile of the original of this passage, see Vol. I.

[380] This letter bears no date, but it refers to the subject set forth in a preceding letter of Calvin's to Cranmer, p. 345, and we have no hesitation in assigning it a place in the course of the same year,—perhaps in July 1552.

[381] A letter without address, but evidently, as the date and the contents prove, relating to the trial of the five students of Lausanne.—(See the letter of the 10th of June, and the note at p. 355.) The personage to whom Calvin writes, is doubtless John Liner, a rich merchant of Saint Gall, settled at Lyons, who often visited the scholars in their dungeon, undertook several journeys on their behalf, and was unsparing, during the whole course of the suit, in tokens of most lively affection.—(Histoire des Martyrs, liv. iv. pp. 230, 231.) John Liner afterwards retired to his own country, where he lived to a very advanced age, and corresponded with Charles de Jonvillers, the secretary of Calvin, a correspondence which has been preserved to our days in the library of Saint Gall. Note, p. 363.

[382] To the brethren of ..., without any further indication. The name of the Polish nobleman, John A Lasco, moderator of the Congregation of Foreign Protestants at London, informs us to what Church this letter was addressed.

The Reformed Church of London, next to that of Strasbourg the oldest of the refugee churches, was formed during the first years of the reign of Edward VI., obtained a legal recognition in 1550, had for ministers Francis Péruçel, called La Rivière, and Richard Vanville, and as moderator an illustrious foreign nobleman, devoted to the cause of religious reform, John A Lasco or Laski. Dispersed in 1553, under the intolerant reign of Mary, it reconstituted itself under the reparative reign of Elizabeth, and reckoned in the list of its pastors one of the most distinguished ministers of Geneva, Nicolas des Gallars. In its early commencement, that Church, which has been perpetuated to our own day, and to which the greater part of the French Churches of England, of Scotland, and even of America, owe their origin and their organization, was troubled by theological disputes, which made the intervention of Calvin needful.

[383] A Lasco had composed a work entitled, The whole Form and Manner of the Ecclesiastical Ministry in the Church of the Strangers, set up at London by the very faithful Prince, Edward VI.

[384] On the back, in the handwriting of Calvin: "The case against Trolliet."

Trolliet, of Geneva, a discontented and unsettled spirit, became, first of all, a hermit in Burgundy, and lived in affectation of sanctity. Soon tired, however, of playing this part, he re-appeared at Geneva, and solicited the functions of the ministry, from which he was warned off by the influence of Calvin, against whom he vowed an irreconcilable hatred. Thenceforward, he made himself remarkable in the ranks of the libertine party, by the violence of his attacks against the Reformer. He arraigned his writings, and offered to prove, that in the book of The Christian Institution, Calvin had made God the author of sin. These accusations, emulously repeated by the adversaries of the Reformer, and speciously tricked up with the authority of Melanchthon, provoked sharp discussions, which were only half appeased by the sentence of the Seigneurs of Geneva, who approved the Christian Institution, while at the same time declaring Trolliet, "homme de bien," out of consideration for the party to which he belonged. The whole of the papers relating to the controversy of Calvin with Trolliet, are to be found collected in Vol. 145 of the MSS. of the Library of Geneva.

[385] "Since we are all corrupt and contaminate by vice, it cannot be but God must hate us, and that not with tyrannical cruelty, but with reasonable equity.... That all the children of Adam come forward to contend and dispute against their Creator, because by his eternal Providence, they were devoted, before they were born, to perpetual calamity. When, on the contrary, God brings them to know themselves, how can they murmur at that? If they have all been taken out of a corrupt mass, it is no way marvellous that they are liable to condemnation. Let them not therefore accuse God of iniquity, because by his eternal decree they are ordained to condemnation, to which their very nature makes them amenable."—Institution of the Christian Religion, edit, of 1554, p. 461.

[386] "The first man fell, because God thought it fit. Now, as to why he thought it fit, we know nothing. Yet it is certain, that he has not thus decided, unless because he saw that it would advance the glory of his name.... Man then falls, according as it has been ordained of God, but he falls by his own vice."—Ibid. edit, of 1551, p. 463.

"Although that by the eternal Providence of God man has been created for that state of misery in which he is, yet notwithstanding he has derived the cause of that misery from himself, and not from God. For he perishes only because of his having, through perversity, degenerated from the pure nature which God had given him."—Ibid., p. 464.

[387] This is the book: De Æterna Dei Prædestinatione et Providentia. Genève, 1550, in 8vo; translated into French the same year.

[388] This is the famous book of the Common Places (Loci Theologici), translated into French under the care of Calvin: The Summe of Theology, or Common Places of Melanchthon, translated from the Latin, by John Calvin. With a Preface. 1546, in 8vo.

[389] It is not uninteresting to compare this estimate formed by Calvin of Melanchthon, with the remarkable one contained in the preface to the Common Places:—"I perceive that the author, being a person of profound knowledge, has not chosen to enter into subtile disputations, nor to treat these matters with that high degree of skill which it would have been so easy for him to employ. But he has brought himself down as much as he could, having only regard to edification. It is, certes, the style and fashion which we should observe, did not our adversaries constrain us by their cavils to turn aside from this course.... The same about predestination, because he sees now-a-days so many flighty spirits who are but too much given to curiosity, and who go beyond bounds in this matter. Wishing to provide against this danger, he has proposed to touch only on what was needful to be known, leaving all else buried out of sight, rather than by disclosing all he could, to give the reins to much perplexing and confused disputation, from whence arises no good fruit. I confess that the whole of what God has been pleased to reveal to us in Scripture ought not to be suppressed, whatsoever happens; but he who seeks to give profitable instruction to his readers, may very well be excused for dwelling upon what he knows to be most essential, passing lightly over or leaving out of sight that which he does not expect to be equally profitable."

[390] Here is the sentence pronounced on this occasion by the Seigneurs of Geneva:—

"Wednesday, 9th November 1552.—Having heard in council the worshipful and learned ministers of the word of God, Master William Farel, and Master Peter Viret, and after them worshipful Monsieur John Calvin, minister of this city of Geneva, and noble John Trolliet, also of Geneva, in their depositions and replies, now often repeated, touching the Christian Institution of the said Monsieur Calvin, and having well considered the whole, the council has determined and concluded, that all things well heard and understood, it has pronounced and declared, and pronounces and declares the said book of the Institution of the said Calvin, to be well and holily done, and his holy doctrine to be God's doctrine, and that he be held as good and true minister of this city, and that henceforward no person dare to speak against the said book, nor the said doctrine. We command both parties, and all concerned, to observe this.

"My said Lords Syndics and Council,

"Roset."

[391] While Calvin was eloquently pleading among others the cause of the persecuted faithful of France, he was struggling with an ever-increasing energy for the suppression of scandals, and the formation of a new people at Geneva. His efforts, however, seemed powerless before the enormity of the evil, and the furious resistance of that party, which history has justly branded with the name of Libertine. The cabal of the factious gathered strength from day to day, and disorders were committed with impunity. The task of reforming the public morals, courageously undertaken by the ministers, was almost absolutely fruitless. Ashamed of such excesses, but incapable of suppressing them, the Great Council increased the severity of its edicts, but had not the power to impose them upon the multitude who were banded together against the foreigners. The French were a particular object of fury to the factions. They beat them in the streets, and subjected them to all sorts of outrages. Most absurd accusations were circulated against them, and were believed by the multitude. The presence of Farel and Viret in Geneva could not quiet these troubles; and it was in vain that these courageous ministers presented themselves before the councils, "to commend to them the care of religion and morals."—Chronique of Roset, c. v. pp. 42, 44; Ruchat, c. v. pp. 489, 490.

[392] Probably Amy Perrin.

[393] Placed by his character and talents at the head of the Vaudois clergy, Viret had to maintain a ceaseless struggle against the encroachments and ecclesiastical tyranny of the Seigneurs of Berne.—See Ruchat, c. v. p. 488.

[394] Minister of the French Church of Strasbourg.

[395] Quatre Sermons traictans des matières fort utiles pour nostre temps. 1552, 8vo. Opuscules, p. 824.

[396] Beza published this year a new edition of his Tragedy of Abraham under the following title:—Le Sacrifice d'Abraham, Tragédie Française, séparée en trois Pauses à la façon des Actes de Comédies, avec des Chœurs, un Prologue et un Epilogue. 1552, 8vo.

[397] Ambroise Blaurer, of a noble family of Constance, entered in early youth a convent, which he soon left to become a preacher of reform, for which he had contracted a taste from reading the writings of Luther. Present at the Controversy of Berne with Zwingle, Œeolampadius, Bucer, and Capito, he beheld his preaching attended with the most gratifying success, and saw the Gospel victoriously established in his native town, where he exercised his valuable ministry until the war of Smalkald. Having at that time refused submission to the Interim, he left Constance, and retired first to Winterthur, near Zurich, and afterwards to Bienne, whilst his unfortunate city, fallen into the hands of the Imperialists, saw itself deprived at once of the Gospel and of liberty. Esteemed by Calvin, Blaurer witnessed his influence at Zurich and at Berne solicited more than once by the Reformer of Geneva. He died in 1567.—See Beza, Icones, and Melch. Adam, Theolog. Germ., p. 413.

[398] In a letter to an unknown personage, (Opera, tom. ix. p. 238,) Calvin mentions this same event, adding to it a curious detail taken from the letter of an eye-witness: "Among other things, he informed me of a circumstance which I am unwilling to withhold from you—that a striking spectacle presented itself to him in the destruction of our city, viz., that my father's house stood entire after all the others had been reduced to ashes." Farther on he adds,—"I have no doubt but that God wishes to make this a testimony against all those of our city who, eight or ten days before, had burnt in effigy Monsieur de Normandie."

[399] Commentarius in Evangelium Johannis. Geneva, 1553. Fol. Robert Estienne.

[400] See Letter, p. 270. Doubly afflicted by the wars which were desolating Germany, and by the disorders which were rending the Church, Melanchthon had maintained a long silence, which was only broken on the 1st October 1552, by a touching letter to Calvin:—"Reverend sir and very dear brother,—I should have written you frequently, had I been able to secure trustworthy letter-carriers. I should have preferred a conversation with you on many questions of very serious interest, inasmuch as I set a very high value on your judgment, and am conscious that the integrity and candour of your mind is unexceptionable. I am at present living as if in a wasps' nest. But perhaps I shall ere long put off this mortal life for a brighter companionship in heaven." Full of affection and respect for Melanchthon, whose character he venerated, while he freely blamed him for his weakness and indecision, Calvin made known, in turn, to the German Reformer, the struggles of all sorts which he had to undergo at Geneva, and with which the name of Melanchthon himself is found mixed up, owing to the astute intrigues of the Libertines, who had an interest in involving these two great men in mutual opposition.

[401] The same fact is related in a letter of Calvin to Dryander in the following terms: "After that monk let loose against us from the service of M. de Falais had been condemned, a plot having been clandestinely hatched, a noisy fellow was found who, not only at table in private families, but up and down the taverns, kept constantly bawling, that we made God the author of sin, and otherwise traduced our ministry in the most insulting manner possible. When I saw that these evenomed words were spread about everywhere, by means of which profligate men were intriguing, by no means covertly, to overthrow the whole kingdom of Christ in this city, I mildly admonished the people to be on their guard against them. I also pointed out to the Senate how dangerous dilatory measures were in such dissensions. Those who had suborned him to molest me, by their intrigues so protracted the cause, that I was kept in suspense upwards of three months. For among the judges there were several who favoured the adverse party. But among many injuries, there was nothing I felt more keenly and bitterly than that this affair forced me into a hateful contest with M. Philip, with whom, however, I broke in such a manner that I never spoke of so great a man except in honourable terms."—Library of Geneva. Vol. 107, a.

[402] We can judge of this from the remarkable memorial of Calvin to the Seigneurie, entitled La Cause contre Trolliet, where we meet with these words:—"That party, Noble Seigneurs, which is desirous of bringing Melanchthon and myself into mutual conflict, is doing great wrong to both of us, and in general to the whole Church of God. I honour Melanchthon as much for his superior learning as for his virtues, and above all, for having laboured so faithfully to uphold the Gospel. If I find fault with him, I do not conceal it from him, seeing that he gives me liberty to do so. There are witnesses in abundance on his side, who know how much he loves me. And I know that he will hold in detestation all those who, under cover of his name, seek to blacken my doctrine."—6th Oct. 1552. (Library of Geneva, vol. 145.) Calvin's preface to Melanchthon's Common Places may also be consulted. Geneva, 1546, 8vo.

Osiander had published many writings against Melanchthon, in which, by a strange reversing of the orthodox doctrine, he attempted to derive Justification from God the Father, by forgetting the part which belonged to Jesus Christ as the Redeemer. See Seckendorf, and Melch. Adam, p. 229.

[403] No date. Written evidently about the end of 1552. This letter, the last which Calvin wrote to M. de Falais, throws a great light on the circumstances of their rupture, of which Jerome Bolsec's process was the occasion. Banished from Geneva for his attacks on the doctrine of predestination and his invectives against Calvin, Bolsec had found means to interest in his cause M. de Falais, whose physician he was, and who interceded to no purpose for him with his judges: "Master Jerome is better acquainted with my constitution and what affords me relief than any other doctor that I know.... It is to him after God that I am indebted for my life."—Archives of Geneva. Letters of the 9th and 11th November 1551. These steps undertaken from a feeling of humanity, would certainly not have indisposed Calvin, if M. de Falais had not too openly taken part with Bolsec against the Reformer. Calvin bitterly complained of it, "that M. de Falais should write that he (Bolsec) was not a bad man, and for the sake of an obscure wretch should hold up his reputation as a subject of mockery." Letter to the ministers of Bâle, January 1552. Expelled from Geneva and settled at Thonon, Bolsec contrived to envenom this difference which the recollections of a long friendship should have appeased, and which terminated in a painful rupture. In a vehement letter, Calvin, at that time suffering from bad health, took leave of his old friend, whose name he erased four years afterwards from the preface to his Commentary on the first Epistle to the Corinthians, in order to substitute in its place that of the Marquis de Vico.

[404] See vol. i. pp. 403, 409. Settled at Bâle, Castalio had just published his Latin version of the Holy Scriptures, which being judged with excessive severity by the Reformed Divines, drew on him numerous enmities.—Bibla Sacra Latina, Basil, 1551.

[405] The history of M. de Falais, after his rupture with Calvin, is enveloped in much obscurity. He left Geneva in order to settle at Berne, lost his wife in 1557, and contracted a second marriage. We know neither the date nor the place of his death. Is it true, as Bayle affirms, that this seigneur, chagrined by the spectacle of the divisions which he had witnessed at Geneva, at last returned to the Catholic church? We are rather inclined to believe, from the testimonies of Calvin and Beza, indirectly confirmed by the silence of the Brabançon historians, that, though differing on some points of Calvinistic theology, the great-grand-son of Philip of Burgundy did not abjure the tenets for which he had sacrificed his fortune and his country. See Bayle, Dict., Art. Philip of Burgundy, remark G; Calvin, Comment. on the 1st Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, dedication to the Marquis of Vico, 24th January 1556; and the preface of Beza to the Commentary on Joshua.

[406] Mathieu Dimonet, a devout Protestant of Lyons, was arrested in that town the 9th January 1553. In his letters to the ministers of Geneva he has himself related the details of his trial:—"On Monday 9 January being in my house in presence of the king's lieutenant and the official, who, after they had searched and visited my books, found nothing, except a little book of spiritual songs set to music...." Dimonet underwent a first examination, and was then led away to the prison of the officialty. "I have undergone," says he, "great assaults and temptations ... for on the one side, they set before me tortures and death, then the shame and dishonour of myself and my relations, the sorrow of my mother, who they said was dying with grief and many other things ... which would have been very hard for me to bear, unless the Lord had strengthened me by his Holy Spirit." The prisoner courageously withstood the threats of the inquisitor Oritz, and the pressing entreaties of his family. The 15th July 1553, quite cheerfully, and praying to the Lord, he endured the torment of death.—Histoire des Martyrs, p. 247.

[407] Peter Berger of Bar-sur-Seine, burgess of Geneva, was seized at Lyons three days after the scholars of Lausanne, whom he rejoined in the dungeons and preceded to martyrdom. "Having mounted the stake, he said, 'Lord, I commit my soul to thee.' Then looking up to heaven with steadfast gaze, and crying aloud, he said, 'To-day I see heaven open;' and immediately after, this saint yielded up his spirit to God."—Histoire des Martyrs, p. 234.

[408] Christopher Fabri [or Libertet] was on the eve of his second marriage. We know nothing of his first wife. In a letter of May 1545, to Fabri, then pastor at Thonon, Calvin speaks highly of the entertainment he received from his wife, on his return from a long tour in the German Cantons: "I could never get your wife to treat us in a plain, homely way.... She was willing to take advice. She repeatedly requested that I should ask for whatever I chose, as if it were my own; she adhered to her own opinion in this, however, that she entertained us too sumptuously; for there was twice as much food always prepared as there was any occasion for. We felt just as much at home as if you had been present."—MS. of the Library of Neuchatel.

[409] In allusion to the efforts of the Libertine party, put forth with increasing violence for the overthrow of ecclesiastical discipline, and which gave rise during the same year to a decisive struggle between the Reformer and his adversaries.

[410] A village on the banks of the Arve, a few miles from Geneva.

[411] John Macard, originally from the neighbourhood of Laon in Picardy, took refuge in Geneva on account of religion. A man of resolute character, and endowed with a manly eloquence, he rendered eminent service to the Church alternately at Geneva and Paris, and the latter reckoned him among the number of its most distinguished pastors.

[412] The minister, Philip de Ecclesia, deposed on account of his disorderly life.

[413] John Cheke, preceptor of Edward VI., King of England, and distinguished alike in science and in letters, won the esteem and confidence of his royal pupil, who raised him to the rank of knighthood, and who gave him in many ways the most precious testimonies of his affection.—See Fuller's Church History, B. vii.; sixteenth cent., 19, 20. Though a man of sincere piety, Cheke was not possessed of a firmness of character equal to the variety of his knowledge and the greatness of his talents. He survived his pupil only to make a deplorable manifestation of the infirmity of his faith under fear of the scaffold and of martyrdom. Arrested in the Low Countries in 1556, by a secret order of Philip II., he was conducted to London, imprisoned in the Tower, and escaped death only by a solemn retractation. He then fell into a profound melancholy, and soon after died, exhibiting sentiments of sincere repentance, asking pardon of God and men for the sin of which he had been guilty. See Strype, Memoirs, III., i. 515, and Zurich Letters, first series, passim

[414] Declared guilty of the crime of heresy, and delivered over to the secular arm by the Judge Ordinary of Lyons, the five students made their appeal to the Parliament of Paris, while the authorities of Berne strove in vain to save "leurs escholiers." Transferred from dungeon to dungeon, during a trial which lasted for more than a year, brought back at last from Paris to Lyons, to await the sentence of their judges, the constancy of these young men never faltered for a single day. At length, the 1st March 1553, they received the communication of the decree of the Parliament of Paris, which gave them over to the stake.—Hist. des Martyrs, lib. iv., p. 230. That melancholy intelligence soon spread around, and brought mourning to Lausanne and to Geneva.

[415] This was the pious merchant, John Liner, of Saint Gall.—See the Letter of the 10th August, p. 358. He was present with the prisoners at the bar of Roanne when they received their sentence of death. He set out immediately for Berne, in order to try a last application on the part of the seigneury of that town to the King of France.—Hist. des Martyrs, pp. 230, 231. Various MSS. of the library of St. Gall.

[416] The inquisitor, Nicolas Oritz, who presided at the trial of the five students. The paper here mentioned still exists in the library of Geneva, 113, with this title:—"Copy of a paper of the Inquisitor Houriz, given to the prisoners for the Word at Lyons, to be conveyed to M. Calvin to retain."

[417] This gentleman, whose name is not known, corresponded by letter with Calvin, his countryman and friend. Shortly before his arrest he wrote to Calvin on the subject of a fire, which had almost entirely destroyed the town of Noyon, sparing, however, the house of the Reformer: "I have no doubt," said he, "that God has left this testimony against those of your town, who eight or ten days before had burnt in effigy Monsieur de Normandie and the rest."—Latin Letter of Calvin of 15th February 1553.

[418] Laurent de Normandie.

[419] The reading of this letter, filled with the most lively and disinterested testimonies of affection for Farel, calls to one's mind the beautiful preface of Calvin's Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to Titus, dedicated to Farel and Viret:—"I do not think," says Calvin, "that there have ever been friends who have lived together in such fast friendship and concord, as we have done during our ministry. I have been a fellow-pastor here with both of you. So far from there having been any appearance of envy between you and me, I always regarded us as one. We have since been separated. As for you, Master William, the Church of Neuchatel, which you have delivered from the tyranny of the Papacy, and won over to Christ, called you to be its pastor; and as for you, Master Peter, you stand in a similar relation to the Church of Lausanne. Each of us, however, guards so well the place committed to us, that by our united efforts, the children of God assemble within the fold of Jesus Christ, and are even united in one company."—Dedication of 29th November 1549.

[420] On the back.—To my kind brethren and friends, the brothers Christopher and Thomas Zollicoffre, merchants of Saint Gall, dwelling at Lyons. Pardon the mistake as to the names and the haste.

The 21st May 1552. The Seigneury of Berne, informed of the arrest of the five Scholars of Lausanne, had written to the King of France to solicit the deliverance of their "pensionaires." The burgomaster of Zurich, John Hab, obtained an audience of this prince and found him inflexible. The following year, March 1553, the Bernese solicited anew the pardon of the five prisoners, condemned by the official of Lyons and the parliament of Paris. It is to this last intercession, urged forward by Calvin and Viret, that the letter of the Reformer to the brothers Zollicoffre refers.

[421] In a letter to the King of the 15th March, Messieurs of Berne had made strong complaint of the conduct of the Cardinal de Tournon, who, after having promised them to interest himself in behalf of the five students, had, with the utmost rigour, instituted proceedings against them. In a second letter, written three days later, they represented to this prince the innocence of their scholars, arrested at Lyons before they had sojourned there a single day, and condemned to death, although they had neither preached, nor dogmatized, nor excited any disturbance in the kingdom. They concluded by saying,—"We very humbly pray your Majesty to bestow them on us as a pure, royal, gratuitous, and liberal gift, which we shall esteem as great and precious, as if a present had been made us of an inestimable amount of gold and silver." These petitions were of no avail. Inspired by the fatal genius of the Cardinals of Tournon and of Lorraine, Henry II. confirmed the sentence of the parliament of Paris.

[422] The letter to which allusion is here made is lost; and one cannot sufficiently deplore the disappearance of documents, which would have shed a fuller light on the relations of Calvin with the Reformer of England.

[423] Seigneur of Picardy, no doubt one of the ancestors of that illustrious confessor, Louis de Marolles, who expiated in the galleys of Marseilles the crime of his resistance to the dragooning zeal of Louis XIV. and the pressing solicitations of Bossuet. "The hour of liberty," says M. Charles Weiss, "never struck for that unfortunate one. He died in 1692 in the Hôpital des Forçats at Marseilles, and was interred in the Turkish cemetery, the ordinary burial-place of the Reformed who died in the galleys, faithful to the last in the religion for which they had suffered."—Histoire des Refugiés Protestantes de France, tom. i. p. 101. See also the book entitled Histoire des Souffrances du bien heureux martyr, M. Louis de Marolles. La Haye, 1699.

[424] This was doubtless Madame de Cany. See note, p. 295.

[425] See the letter to the brothers Zollieoffre, and the notes relative to the last intercession of the Seigneurie of Berne in behalf of the students of Lausanne, p. 396. Viret took the most lively interest in the captives, and wrote them a beautiful letter a short while before their martyrdom, full of Christian exhortations, which may be seen in the Histoire des Martyrs, pp. 248, 249.

[426] The Constable, Anne de Montmorency, governor of Lyonnais, shared with Cardinal de Tournon the melancholy honour of having urged on with fury the condemnation of those prisoners who had been recommended to his merciful intercession with the king.—Hist. des Martyrs, p. 231, MSS. of the Archives of Berne.

[427] This letter is without a date, but from the allusion to the very dangerous illness of Farel, it must have been written in the month of April 1553.

[428] Theodore Bibliander, professor of Theology at Zurich. Of an ardent and irritable nature, he could not bear to be contradicted, and it is even told of him that he challenged to a duel the celebrated Peter Martyr, one of his colleagues, owing to some disagreement on the doctrine of predestination. The Seigneurie of Zurich dismissed the warlike theologian.—Hist. de la Suisse, tom. xii. p. 87.

[429] Is this John ab Ulmis of whom we read in numerous letters to Bullinger?—Zurich Letters, first series, vol. ii. pp. 377, 458.

[430] The end of this letter is wanting.

[431] This letter must have preceded by some days the last conflict of the five prisoners. Foreseeing their end near, they wrote, on the 5th May, to the Seigneurie of Berne, to thank them for the testimonials of affection which they had received from them. "If it has not pleased God," they said, "to preserve life by your means, it has at least been prolonged thereby ... in spite of the fury of all those who would have desired long ago to put us to death. Since, then, that He is pleased that our blood should soon be shed for the confession of his holy name, we reckon ourselves far happier than if we were set at liberty, for as he is true and all-powerful, he will strengthen us, and will not permit us to be tormented beyond our strength; and after that we have suffered awhile, he will receive us into his heavenly kingdom, and will bestow upon us eternal rest with himself...." It was the 16th May when the five scholars were told to prepare for death; they received that intelligence with a pious serenity. The stake was set up upon the Place des Terreaux; they proceeded thither, singing psalms, and repeating passages of holy writ. "Having arrived at the place of death, they cheerfully mounted on the heap of wood, the two youngest first.... The last who went up was Martial Alba, the elder of the five, who had been a long time on his knees in prayer to the Lord. He earnestly requested Lieutenant Tignac to grant him a favour. The lieutenant said to him: What would you? He said to him: That I might kiss my brethren before I die. The lieutenant granted his wish. Then the said Martial kissed the other four who were already bound, saying to each of them, Adieu, adieu, my brother. The fire was kindled; the voice of the five confessors was heard, still exhorting one another in the midst of the flames: Courage, my brothers; courage.... These were the last audible words of these five valiant champions and martyrs of the Lord."—Hist. des Martyrs, lib. iv. p. 231.

[432] Calvin refers here to other prisoners of Lyons, Mathieu Dimonet and Denis Peloquin, who kept up in prison a pious correspondence by letter with the scholars of Lausanne.

[433] In the Fellowship Register of Geneva, (Registres de la Compagnie de Genève, Vol. A. p. 440,) there is a document entitled, "Letter of a Lady persecuted by her Papist Husband," from France, 24th June 1552. That lady was of high birth, as these words indicate, "Knowing the house to which she belongs, and the great lords of the kingdom to whom she is related, and who are in great favour with the king...." This passage appears to us to point at Madame de Cany; see the Note, p. 295. Persecuted by her husband on account of her belief, that lady found her only consolation in the letters and exhortations which she received in secret from Geneva. Note, p. 409.

[434] A town of Savoy, some leagues from Geneva—used sometimes as a pseudonyme by the Reformer.

[435] The dungeons in which Mathieu Dimonet still pined away, contained several other prisoners, Denis Peloquin of Blois, Louis de Marsac, gentleman of the Bourbonnais, and one of his cousins. It is to the two last, recently arrived at Lyons, that the letter of the Reformer is addressed. The prisoners maintained a pious correspondence with those outside their prison. Peloquin wrote to his relations,—"... My dear brothers and sisters, ... do not stay yourselves, I beseech you, upon the judgment of the world, which is so blinded, that it cannot find life in death, nor blessing in cursing. Let us know that the means of being confirmed in Jesus Christ ... is that we should carry our cross with him, for the servant is not greater than the master...." Louis de Marsac wrote to Calvin:—"Sir and brother, ... I cannot express to you the great comfort I have received ... from the letter which you have sent to my brother Denis Peloquin, who found means to deliver it to one of our brethren who was in a vaulted cell above me, and read it to me aloud, as I could not read it myself, being unable to see anything in my dungeon. I entreat of you, therefore, to persevere in helping us with similar consolation, for it invites us to weep and to pray."—Histoire des Martyrs, pp. 236, 251.

[436] King Edward VI. died a very pious death on the 6th of July preceding. See Burnet's History. Bullinger verified this mournful event to Calvin in the following words:—"I have received intelligence from England of a very sad occurrence. That most pious king departed to the Lord on the 6th of July; and he departed very happily indeed with a holy confession. The book which I here send you was written by him, and published in the month of May. You will see from it how great a treasure the Church of Christ has lost."—Bullinger to Calvin, August 1553. Eccl. Archives of Berne.

[437] We have already read at p. 30, of the present volume of Calvin's first connection with Servetus, and of the rupture of that connection as attested by the letter of Calvin to John Frellon (13th February 1546). Wandering by turns in France, Germany, and Italy, Servetus had taken up his residence at Vienne in Dauphiné, where he at once exercised the profession of a doctor, and persisted in his daring attacks on Christianity, for which he aspired to substitute a rational philosophy. Such is the drift of his book entitled Christianismi Restitutio, which he published anonymously in 1553, after having two-and-twenty years before directed his bold attacks against the doctrine of the Trinity, in his book De Trinitatis Erroribus, published at Haguenau in 1531. Accused by a Genevan refugee before the Inquisition of Lyons, as the author of these writings, Servetus was arrested, cast into the dungeons of Vienne, and condemned by Catholic judges to be burnt, from which he only escaped by flight. Hear how Theodore Beza recounts, in his letter to Bullinger, the preparations for the trial of Servetus, of his escape from prison, and of his arrival and arrest at Geneva:—"You have heard doubtless of that impious blasphemer Servetus. He caused a book, or rather volume of his blasphemies to be secretly printed at Lyons. Certain good brethren at Lyons informed the magistrate of this deceitful action. Persons were despatched to Vienne, where he was practising as a physician, to bring him bound [to Lyons]. He was seized, but soon after effected his escape by deceit. At length he came to Geneva, where he went skulking about. He was forthwith recognized, however, by a certain person, and cast into prison. Calvin also, whom he treated very unhandsomely by name in thirty printed letters, pled the cause of the Church against him in the Council, in the presence of a great assemblage of the pious. He continued in his impiety. What will come of it I know not. Let us pray the Lord to purge his Church of these monsters."—MSS. of Zurich. Letter of the 27th August 1553. Such was the opening of the process which terminated so fatally for Servetus. Born in an age not disposed to show mercy to errors of faith, he seems, says a historian, to have fled from Spain—the native country of the auto-da-fé—only to see his effigy burnt in a strange land by the torch of a Catholic executioner, and to come afterwards to expire amid flames kindled by Calvinistic justice.—Albert Rilliet, Relation du Procès Criminel intenté contre Servet. Genève, 1844. 8vo.—[Translated into English by the Rev. Dr. Tweedie.]

[438] Nicolas de la Fontaine, a servant of Calvin's, was made, conformably to the judicial usages then in operation at Geneva, criminal prosecutor against Servetus.—Registers of the Council, 14th August 1553.

[439] It is curious to read on this point the reply of Farel to Calvin:—"In desiring to mitigate the severity of his punishment, you act the part of a friend to a man who is most hostile to you. But I beseech you so to manage the matter that no one whatever may rashly dare to publish new dogmas, and throw all things into confusion with impunity for such a length of time as he has done." In his relentless rigour against heresy, Farel did not hesitate to pronounce himself even to be worthy of death if he should teach any dogma opposed to the faith. His words deserve to be recorded:—"When I read Paul's statement that he did not refuse to suffer death if he had in any way deserved it, I saw clearly that I must be prepared to suffer death if I should teach anything contrary to the doctrine of piety. And I added, that I should be most worthy of any punishment whatever, if I should seduce any one from the faith and doctrine of Christ."—8th Sept. 1553. Calv. Opera, tom. ix. p. 71

[440] Occupying the same cell during the last days of their captivity, the two prisoners were only separated to die. Denis Peloquin was taken from his prison the 4th September, and conducted to Ville Franche, where his heroic constancy at the stake excited the wonder and tender sympathy of the spectators. Louis de Marsac, with two other victims, Etienne Gravot of Gyen, and Marsac, his cousin, who had followed him into his dungeon, "gave thanks to God for the inestimable honour which he conferred upon them of suffering for his name." At the moment when the three condemned were about to be led to the place of execution, a rope was put about their neck, according to custom. "Louis de Marsac, seeing that they spared him in that particular, out of some regard to his quality, asked in a loud voice if the cause of his two brethren was different from his, adding these words, 'Alas! do not refuse me the collar of so excellent an order.' The lieutenant agreed to his wish, and the three martyrs, chanting with one voice the song of deliverance, shortly after mounted the pile prepared on the Place des Terreaux, and expired in the midst of the flames."—Hist. des Martyrs. Lib. iv. p. 254. Hist. Eccl. tom. i. p. 92.

[441] Michael Girard. In a note in the History of the Martyrs, this Michael Girard did not persevere.

[442] The rigour of the judges of Servetus could not fail to extend to the book which served as the basis of the judicial prosecution directed against his person. From the confession of the accused, there had been printed a thousand copies of the Christianismi Restitutio, of which a certain number were deposited at Frankfort. Calvin did not forget the latter portion of this acknowledgment, confirmed besides by a letter from the printer at Vienne, but wrote immediately to the Church of Frankfort, desiring the sequestration and destruction of this dangerous deposit. A clerk of the celebrated printer, Robert Stephens, then resident at Geneva, was charged with this mission, which he accomplished with so very great success, that there are only three copies of the original edition to be found at the present day; one in the Imperial Library of Paris, another in that of Vienna in Austria, and a third in a private collection.—Rilliet, Relation du Procès de Servet, p. 9.

[443] A serious conflict came to be raised between the ministers and the magistrates of Geneva. A chief of the Libertins, Philibert Berthelier, was excommunicated by the Consistory for his irregular habits, and appealed to the Council of State, which annulled the ecclesiastical sentence, and gave Berthelier authority to go forward to the Supper. The experiment was decisive; it was made to know whether or not Calvin would abandon ecclesiastical discipline, or resist the government. This letter of the Reformer to Viret, shows us with what energetic resolution and heroic constancy he resolved, in this instance, to maintain the honour of Christ. This conflict, which mutually divided the representatives of the spiritual and civil powers, could only be terminated by the solemn intervention of the Helvetian Churches.—Registers of Council, anno 1553. See also the various histories of Geneva, Spon, Picot, &c.

[444] In a letter to Theodore Beza of 30th August 1553, he gave eloquent expression to his deep anxiety for the Church of England:—"Scarcely has any other thing so much distressed me as this English affair. Let us earnestly implore mercy of God, that he may have pity on us, and upon his most afflicted Church. But where is our Martyr? where John A Lasco? where is Hooper, Bishop of Worcester? where is Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury? where is the Duke of Suffolk? where are numberless other excellent men? Lord, have mercy upon them. I cannot easily express how greatly these things distress me."—Zurich Letters, 1st series, vol. ii. p. 741.

[445] "The London Church has more than 15,000 foreigners. Where will these miserable ones flee to, should the Pope gain the day? We must pray God therefore...."—Letter of Bullinger to Calvin, of 26th August 1553.—Eccl. Archives of Berne, vol. vi. p. 312.

[446] Cardinal Pole was at that time preparing to leave Rome to return to England:—"An English nobleman was sent lately by Queen Mary to recall that Reginald Pole, who is too well known both to you and myself; for that English Athaliah desires the benefit of his presence and his counsel."—Bullinger to Beza, letter already quoted.

[447] At the session of the 5th September, the Council of Geneva had decided, contrary to the wish of Calvin, upon consulting the Churches of Berne, Basle, Sebaffhausen, and Zurich, respecting the culpability of Servetus, but this decision was realized just a fortnight too late.—Rilliet, Relation du Procès de Servet, p. 84.

[448] Rudolph Gualter, minister of the Church of Zurich, and son-in-law to Bullinger.

[449] The Lesser Council of Geneva, acting upon the proposition made a few days previously, (note 1,) prepared to write to the Churches of Berne, Zurich, Sebaffhausen, and Basle, to ask their advice regarding the culpability of Servetus. It was not, however, till the 21st of September, that the messenger, charged with the various papers relative to the trial, had put into his hands the circular letter addressed to the magistrates or pastors of the four towns. These letters were accompanied by a copy of the Christianismi Restitutio, a copy of the works of Tertullian, and one of those of Irenæns, as well as the questions put to Servetus, together with his replies, and the refutation of the ministers. In those circulars, the council gave expression to its entire confidence in the intelligence of the pastors of Geneva, but desired, before coming to a decision, to have fuller information on the point, by consulting the other Churches. The fate of the prisoner evidently depended on the result of this supreme measure. Calvin, addressing Bullinger and Sulzer alternately, insisted strongly on the alleged culpability of Servetus, and on the necessity of a punishment, which should be, as it appeared to him, a solemn consecration of those truths which had been shaken by the attacks of the audacious Spanish doctor. The messenger charged with the letter to Sulzer was the Treasurer Du Pan, one of the most devoted disciples of the Reformer.

[450] These last words betray Calvin's want of confidence in the Pastors of the Church of Berne, with certain of whom he was found to disagree upon certain points of doctrine, and who had given expression to principles of great toleration in the reply relative to Bolsec.

[451] See letter, p. 418.

[452] Notice in the handwriting of Charles de Jonvillers:—"He wrote this letter to a good young lady, personally unknown to him, who having set out on the way to Geneva, was arrested by a relation of her own, who wished to deprive her of her liberty. Two of her brothers came hither to get letters from him. But fearing lest they might ask them for their own ends, and to the injury of the young lady, he wrote and adopted this style for the express object he had in view."

[453] "To the faithful dispersed in some isles of France." The peninsula of Arvert on the coast of Saintonge, peopled by fishermen and pirates, received the first seeds of the Gospel from some refugees driven away by persecution from the neighbouring towns. "The seed sown was afterwards fertilized by some monks preaching a kind of half truth, as regarded doctrine, and reproving vices; so that in a little time we saw (in that country) a strange alteration."—Beza, Hist. Eccl., tom. i. p. 101. From the point of Arvert, the Reformation spread into the adjoining islets, and there made numerous disciples, in spite of the rigours of the Parliament of Bourdeaux. A great missionary, Philibert Hamelin, regulated this movement. From Tours originally, he at first preached the Reformed doctrine with success at Saintes. Seized in that town, he miraculously escaped death, and sought an asylum at Geneva, where he followed the calling of a printer. But the ardour of his zeal soon led him to betake himself once more to the perilous apostolate, which was to close with martyrdom. He revisited La Saìntonge, visited his brethren dispersed among the islands, organized their churches, and taken a second time, he perished at the stake at Bourdeaux, the 18th April 1557. The journal of another glorious missionary of the Reformation, Bernard Palissy, may be consulted as to the ministry and death of Hamelin.

[454] Philibert Hamelin.

[455] See the letters, pp. 422, 427. They were then waiting at Geneva for the reply of the Swiss churches to the circular letters which had been addressed to them concerning the case of Servetus.

[456] Farel arrived at Geneva a few days afterwards, where was reserved for him the melancholy mission of accompanying Servetus to the stake.

[457] Galeazzo Caraccioli, Marquis de Vico.

[458] The state messenger charged with the delivery of the documents relative to the trial of Servetus to the Swiss Churches, had visited in succession those of Berne, Zurich, Schaffhausen, and Bâle, and had now returned to Geneva with their replies. The churches were alike unanimous in their judgment of the theological culpability of Servetus, and in their testimonies of affection and confidence towards Calvin and his colleagues. Without giving expression to the nature of the punishment which should be inflicted on the accused, they were unanimous in advising them to rid the Church of a pest, which had already brought ruin to so great a number of souls. Their various replies will be found in Calvini Opera, tom. ix. p. 72, et seq. The magistrates of Berne, who had counselled toleration to Bolsec, manifested an inflexible rigour towards Servetus, exhorting those of Geneva not to act unworthily of Christian magistrates. The ministers of Zurich were still more decided: "We think," said they, "that you ought in this case to manifest much faith and zeal, inasmuch as our churches have abroad the bad reputation of being heretical, and of being particularly favourable to heresy. Holy Providence at this time affords you an opportunity of freeing yourselves and us from that injurious suspicion, if you know how to be vigilant and active in preventing the further spreading of that poison, and we have no doubt but that your Seigneurs will do so." After such replies the sentence against Servetus could not be long doubtful; and the magistrates, in condemning him to death, were only the interpreters of the stern thought of an age in which persecution, that sad legacy of the Middle Ages, was the avowed jurisprudence of all Christian communions. The day following that on which Calvin penned these lines addressed to Farel, (27th October 1553,) Servetus was led forth to hear his doom pronounced at the gate of the Hotel de Ville, and mounted the fatal pile erected at Champel, bequeathing a mournful souvenir to the Reformation, and an eternal subject of accusation to the enemies of the Reformer. The error of Calvin in the death of Servetus was, we may say, altogether that of his age, inasmuch as men of the most conciliating and moderate dispositions, viz., Bucer, Œcolampadius, Melanchthon, and Bullinger, were at one in their approval of the condemnation of the unfortunate Spanish innovator. One may deeply deplore this error without insulting the Reformation, and combine in a just measure that pity which a great victim demands, with respect for those men whom an unhappy time made the accusers and the judges of Servetus.

[459] May not the personage in question be Antoine de Pons, Lord of Maremme? He had taken for his first wife Anne de Parthenay, daughter of M. de Soubise, and had embraced the Reformed faith at the Court of Ferrara. Having afterwards married the lady of Montebenu, he fell away from Protestantism, and even became one of its persecutors.—Bèze, Hist. Eccl., tom. i. p. 199.

[460] After the accession of Queen Mary to the throne of England, the Continent was filled with religious exiles, who did not hesitate to sacrifice their country for the free profession of their faith in a strange land. A great many English Churches were established in Germany and Switzerland. Those of Frankfort and Geneva were the most important.—See on the origin and history of the latter, the Memoir published by a Genevese savant, M. Heyer, in the Recueil de la Société d'Histoire et d'Archéologie de Genève. 1854.

[461] "The whole of the Lesser Council, the gentlemen of justice, M. Calvin, and a great number of the more eminent men of the town, dine together, in order to cement the peace, and it has been decided upon that if any one violate it all the others may oppose him."—Registers of the Council for 1553.

[462] See the letter to Viret, p. 423. After having solemnly refused the Supper to Philibert Berthelier, Calvin presented himself before the Council, and demanded a general assembly of the people. The Council could not, he said, annul a discipline which the entire people had sanctioned. Intimidated by this step, the Council adopted the course which it had already followed in the case of Servetus, and expressed the intention of consulting the other Reformed Cantons. Charged with a secret mission by the Reformer, his friend John de Budé set out for Zurich, to solicit in that place, a decision favourable to the views of Calvin. Bullinger was active in his exertions to gain over the magistrates of his country, as well as in giving Calvin wise counsels of moderation:—"We have laboured with all our might," he wrote to him, "to prevent our Seigneurs from acting in any way derogatory to the excellent laws of your Church; we have besides exhorted you to continue faithful, using moderation in all things, lest you lose those whose salvation is desired by the Lord, who does not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax."—Bullinger to Calvin. 12th December 1553.

[463] While giving an energetic deliverance against the errors of Servetus, the ministers of Zurich had paid, in their reply to the Seigneurie of Geneva, a very beautiful tribute to Calvin:—"We trust that the faith and zeal—in a word, the distinguished services among the exiles and the pious—of our brother, your pastor, Calvin, is too illustrious to be obscured by such very disgraceful calumnies, whether in the estimation of your honourable Council, or in that of other good men."—Calv. Opera, tom. ix. p. 74.

[464] See the preceding letter. The Council of Zurich having received the letter of that of Geneva, and having consulted Bullinger and his colleagues regarding the reply which they would require to make, did not hesitate to give a deliverance in favour of Calvin, and against the demands of the Libertines. They accordingly exhorted the magistrates of Geneva to maintain their ecclesiastical laws, "as good and conformable to the prescriptions of the Divine word, and as particularly necessary in an age in which men are becoming more and more wicked." Although the discipline then in operation at Zurich differed essentially from that of Geneva, in being less rigorous, yet the Seigneurs of Zurich pronounced a eulogy upon that of the latter, "inasmuch as it was framed in a manner adapting it to the time, the place, and the persons; and that every Church ought to persevere in those usages which she has received and holily established, according to the word of God."—Ruchat, Hist. de la Reformation, tom. vi. pp. 67, 68. The reply of the Seigneurs of Berne was less explicit. They limited themselves to the declaration, that excommunication was not in force among them, but that they had certain regulations, of which they forwarded them a copy.

[465] Farel, while preaching at Geneva, had addressed severe language to the youths of that city; and he said they were "worse than brigands, murderers, thieves, plunderers, atheists." A crowd of young men presenting themselves before the Council, menaced it to its face, and demanded that Farel should be summoned from Neuchatel to give an account of his insolent language. A great tumult followed this proposition. Some made bold to stand up and call to their recollection the services Farel had rendered to the republic, and the shame of an accusation directed against the spiritual father of the city. Meanwhile, Farel arrived, calm as usual. The cry got up of Justice! Justice! and the citizens leaving their shops, hastened to rally round the venerable pastor, and preserve him from all disgrace. He had little difficulty in justifying himself and even Perrin was compelled to proclaim his innocence.—Registers of the Council, Nov. 1553; Roset, tom. v. p. 53; and Hist. de la Suisse, tom. xi. p. 381.

[466] In Calvin's own hand.

[467] This is the book against the errors of Michael Servetus.—Opera, tom. viii.; and Opuscules, p. 230. The Registers of Council contain the following intimation on the subject of this work:—"Calvin has represented to the Council, that at the request of the Swiss Churches, he is about to publish a book, containing an account of the opinions of Servetus: and that he has not been so bold as to commit it to the press without the permission of the Council, assuring it that this book contains nothing not conformable to the word of God, or dishonourable to the city. Agreed to permit Calvin to print it; 11th December 1553." This book, as establishing the right of magistrates to punish heresy by the sword, has given occasion to the most violent controversies.

[468] Calvin had written, what he then suppressed: De Curione et Similibus. The condemnation of Servetus was disapproved of by certain of the professors of the Academy of Bâle, among whom is to be found the celebrated Italian refugee, Celio Secondo Curione, and Sebastian Castalio.

[469] Whilst the number of refugees was increasing at Geneva and the other towns of Switzerland, their wants were provided for by liberal charitable donations. This was the origin of the Bourse Etrangère founded at Geneva, and whose revenues are applied, even in our own day, to the support of poor students, or to the establishing of new schools.

[470] No date. Printed with this designation: D. Agneti Anglæ. But the text of the letter itself proves that it is addressed to an Italian lady named Agnès. We find a person of this name among the members of the Reformed Church of Ferrara. Opera Olympiæ Moratæ. Edit. of 1580, p. 115. Is it not to this lady that is addressed the message of the Reformer, the date of which ought apparently to be placed in 1553, the time of the dispersion of the Evangelical church formed in the capital of the Dukes of Este?

[471] To a Seigneur of the neighbouring Isle of Normandy. Without date: 1553?

The English Isles of Jersey and Guernsey had a share in the religious revolutions of England during the reign of Mary and Elizabeth. Already during the reign of Edward VI. the Isle of Guernsey possessed a French Protestant Church, of which the pastor Denis Le Vair was tortured in 1555 in Rouen: Beza, Hist. Eccl. Vol. 1. p. 95. The Church of Saint Helier in Jersey has been perpetuated to the present time.

Transcriber's note:"

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.

The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

There was no CHAPTER CXLVI in the book, but there were two chapters CLXVIII. These were renumbered thus matching the table of contents.

Page 89: The transcriber has inserted a dash to replace the blank area.