CCXXXIV.—To the Ministers of the Church of Montbeliard.[218]

Exhortations to discharge to the end their ministerial duties.

[Geneva, 16th January 1549.]

Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.—Very dear brethren, deserving of my hearty reverence, what we so long feared has at length come to pass, for Satan has, by the aid of his ministers, overturned among you also the order of the Church as established by God. Yet your letter was consolatory—so far as there could be any consolation in so very sad a state of things—for we learned from it that you were all faithful to the last in the discharge of your duty. In denouncing, as you say you did, those seducers who were making themselves busy in defiling the purity of sound doctrine, you acted with a decision worthy of the ministers of Christ. You now give a bright example of the sincerity of your faith, in preferring even exile to perfidious dissimulation. For when he who had hitherto given a hospitable reception within his dominions to the Church of Christ, and had granted you full permission to preach Christ, now deprives you of the office of teachers, there is no use in pushing the matter farther, as we think, especially when there is no hope of making progress, and when the sheep, over which Christ had made you pastors, no longer desire your services. As he is a traitor who voluntarily yields up and deserts his post, so it is our duty, when forced, not to offer resistance, unless perhaps we should be expressly called upon by the Church to undergo the extremity; for it is a hundred times better to die, than for those who were prepared to follow Christ to make vain their vows. But your case is far different; for so long as you were pastors, you were faithful and assiduous in your attention to your flocks. Now when there is no use in desiring to persevere, and when the sheep themselves, to whom your faith was pledged, do not consider it profitable for you to proceed farther, you are certainly free from all further obligation. It remains, therefore, for you to commend to Christ the charges committed to you, that he alone by his Spirit may give guidance when you have no longer any opportunity of carrying on your labours. Henceforward we may imagine what your sorrow must be, seeing that nothing presents itself to you but exile and poverty. But your greatest affliction will be caused by the misery of the Church, for whose interests you have evinced greater regard than for your own. And we indeed are equally affected—as we ought to be—by your public and private misfortunes. Would that we could extend a helping hand to you! For the rest, we exhort you to hold on to the end in this your testimony of Christian sincerity. Your lot, however hard, will be more blessed than if you maintained a name and a place where the Son of God was exiled. Yet we shall soon see him so reigning in heaven, as to make his power appear also on the earth. Meanwhile, it becomes us to be ready for the warfare, since it is not yet the hour of triumph. Adieu, best and most upright brethren. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you, may he comfort and support you in your devoted steadfastness.

Your brethren truly in the Lord, the Ministers of the Church of Geneva.—In the name of all,

John Calvin.

[Calvin's Lat. Corresp.—Opera, tom. ix. p. 50.]