justly brought upon themselves. In the "Institutes," Calvin does what Luther had done in his book against Erasmus; he makes the Fall itself, the primal transgression, the object of an efficient decree. In this particular he goes beyond Augustine, and apparently affords a sanction to the extreme, or supra-lapsarian type of theology, which afterwards found numerous defenders - which traces sin to the direct agency of God, and even founds the distinction of right and wrong ultimately on his omnipotent will.1 But when Calvin was called upon to define his doctrine more carefully, as in the Consensus Genevensis, he confines himself to the assertion of a permissive decree-a volitive permission in the case of the first sin. In other words, he does not overstep the Augustinian position. He explicitly avers that every decree of the Almighty springs from reasons which, though hidden from us, are good and sufficient; that is to say, he founds will upon right, and not right upon will. He differs, however, both from Augustine and Luther, in affirming that none who are once converted fall from a state of grace, the number of believers being coextensive with the number of the elect. The main peculiarity of Calvin's treatment of this subject, as compared with the course pursued by the other Reformers, is the greater prominence which he gives to Predestination. It stands in the foreground; it is never left out of sight.. Luther's practical handling of this dogma was quite different. Under his influence it retreated more and more into the background, until not only in Melancthon's system, but also in the later Lutheran theology, unconditional Predestination disappeared altogether.

As a commentator, the ability of Calvin is very great. The first of his series of works in this department-his

1 Inst. III. xxiii. 6 seq.

2 Opera (Amst. ed.), tom. viii. 638, "Clare affirmo nihil decernere sine optima causa: quæ si hodie nobis incognita est, ultimo die patefiet."

CALVIN AS A COMMENTATOR.

203

work on the Epistle to the Romans was issued while he was at Strasburg, after his expulsion from Geneva. The preparation of his commentaries was always the most congenial of his occupations. If his readers, he once said, gathered as much profit from the perusal, as he did from the composition of them, he should have no reason to regret the labor which they had cost. He was possessed of an exegetical tact which few have equaled. He has the true spirit of a scholar. He detests irrelevant talk upon a passage, but unfolds its meaning in concise and pointed terms. He is manly, never evades difficulties, but always grapples with them; and he is candid. He makes, on points of dogma, qualifications and occasional concessions which are generally left out of his polemical treatises, but which are indispensable to a correct appreciation of his opinions. If he created an epoch in doctrinal theology, it is equally true that he did much to found a new era, for which, however, Melancthon and others had paved the way, in the exegesis of the Scriptures. Luther seized on the main idea of a passage, but was less precise as a philological critic. The palm belongs to Luther, as a translator; to Calvin, as an interpreter of the Word.

Notwithstanding the radical principles of Calvin, it deserves to be remarked that as a practical Reformer, he was, in some marked particulars, not the extremist which he is commonly supposed to have been. He did not favor the iconoclastic measures of men like Knox. He was not even hostile to bishops as a jure humano arrangement.1 He would not have cared to abolish the four Christian festivals, which the Genevan Church, without his agency, early discarded. In his epistles to Somerset, the Protector in the time of Edward VI., and to the English Reformers, he criticizes freely the Anglican Church. Too much, he said, was conceded to weak brethren: to bear Henry, ii. 138, 139.

with the weak does not mean that "we are to humor blockheads who wish for this or that, without knowing why." He thought it a scandal, he wrote to Cranmer, that so many papal corruptions remain; for example, that "idle gluttons are supported to chant vespers in an unknown tongue." But he was indifferent respecting various customs and ceremonies, which a more rigid Puritanism made it a point of conscience to abjure.

There are marked personal traits of Calvin, which exhibit themselves in his letters and other writings, and which we shall find illustrated in the course of his life. Instead of the geniality, which is one of the native qualities of Luther, we find an acerbity, which is felt more easily than described, and which, more than anything else, has inspired multitudes with aversion to him. Beza, his disciple, friend, and biographer, states that in his boyhood he was the censor of the faults of his mates.1 Through life, he had a tone, in reminding men of their real or supposed delinquencies, which provoked resentment. To those much older than himself, to men like Cranmer and Melancthon, he wrote in this unconsciously cutting style. There was much in the truthfulness, fidelity, and courage, which he manifests even in his reproofs, to command respect. Yet, there was a tart quality which, coupled with his unyielding tenacity of opinion, was adapted to provoke disesteem. We learn from Calvin himself, that Melancthon, mild as he was naturally, was so offended at the style of one of his admonitory epistles, that he tore it in pieces. The wretched health of Calvin, with the enormous burdens of labor that rested upon him for years, had an unfavorable effect upon a temper naturally irritable. He was occasionally so carried away by gusts of passion, that he lost all self-control. He ac

1 It was a current phrase at Geneva: "Besser mit Beza in der Hölle als mit Calvin im Himmel." Henry, i. 171.

2 See his Letter to Farel (April, 1539), Henry, i. 256. See also, p. 435 seq., ii. 432. "The mass of his occupations," Calvin says, "had confirmed him in an irritable habit." Henry, i. 465.

CALVIN'S PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

205

knowledges this fault with the utmost frankness; he had tried in vain, he says, to tame "the wild beast of his anger;" and on his death-bed he asked pardon of the Senate of Geneva for outbursts of passion, while at the same time he thanked them for their forbearance. The later biographers of Calvin, even such as admire him most, have remarked that his piety was unduly tinged with the Old Testament spirit. It is significant that the great majority of the texts of his homilies and sermons, as far as they have been preserved, are from the ancient Scriptures. Homage to law is a part of his being. To bring thought, feeling, and will, to bring his own life, and the lives of others, to bring Church and State into subjection to law, is his principal aim. He is overcome with awe at the inconceivable power and holiness of God. This thought is uppermost in his mind. Of his conversion, he writes: "God suddenly produced it; he suddenly subdued my heart to the obedience of His will." To obey the will of God was his supreme purpose in life, and in this purpose his soul was undivided; no mutinous feeling was suffered to interpose a momentary resistance. But the tender, filial temper often seems lost in the feeling of the subject toward his lawful Ruler. A sense of the exaltation of God not only takes away all fear of men, but seems to be attended with some loss of sensibility with regard to their lot. To promote the honor of God, and to secure that end at all hazards, is the chief object in view. Whatever, in his judgment, brings dishonor upon the Almighty, as, for example, attacks made upon the truth, moves his indignation, and he feels bound, in conscience. to confront such attacks with a pitiless hostility. He considers it an imperative duty, as he expressly declares, to hate the enemies of God. In reference to them, he says: "I would rather be crazed, than not be angry."1 Hence, though not consciously vindictive, and though really 1 Henry, i. 464.

placable in various instances where he was personally wronged, he was on fire the moment that he conceived the honor of God to be assailed. How difficult it would be for such a man to discriminate between personal feeling and zeal for a cause with which he felt himself to be thoroughly identified, it is easy to understand. Calvin did not touch human life, at so many points, as did Luther; and having a less broad sympathy himself, he has attracted less sympathy from others. The poetic inspiration that gave birth to the stirring hymns of the German Reformer, was not among his gifts. He wrote a poem in Latin hexameters, on the triumph of Christ, which was composed at Worms during the Conference there-in which he describes Eck, Cochlæus, and other Catholic combatants, as dragged after the chariot of the victorious Redeemer. A few hymns, mostly versions of Psalms, have lately been traced to his pen.1 It has been noticed that although he spent the most of his life on the borders of the Lake of Geneva, he nowhere alludes to the beautiful scenery about him. Yet, there is something impressive, though it be a defect, in this exclusive absorption of his mind in things invisible. When we look at his extraordinary intellect, at his culture which opponents, like Bossuet, have been forced to commend which made him endure with more than stoical fortitude infirmities of body under which most men would have sunk, and to perform, in the midst of them, an incredible amount of mental labor; when we see him, a scholar naturally fond of seclusion, physically timid, and recoiling from notoriety and strife, abjuring the career that was most to his taste, and plunging with a single-hearted, disinterested zeal, and an indomitable will, into a hard, protracted contest; and when we follow his steps, and see what things he

at the invincible

energy

1 See Calvini Opera, (Reuss et al.) vol. vi. One of these hymns, translated by Mrs. H. B. Smith, is in Schaff's collection of religious poetry, Christ in Song, (1869).