CALVIN TO EDWARD VI., KING OF ENGLAND

July 4 1552--British Museum

_Eng^d. by_

[Transcriber: handwritten letter follows]

_See Note, Page 10_

Presbyterian Board of Publication]

LETTERS

JOHN CALVIN

COMPILED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITED WITH HISTORICAL NOTES

DR. JULES BONNET.

VOL. I.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL LATIN AND FRENCH.

PHILADELPHIA: PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, NO. 821 CHESTNUT STREET.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by JAMES DUNLAP, TREAS., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

ADVERTISEMENT.

John Calvin, the profound scholar, the exact theologian, the enlightened statesman, and the eminent Reformer, exerted an influence on the age in which he lived, which, instead of being diminished by the lapse of three centuries, must continue and increase while the great truths, involving the present and future interests of mankind, which he so lucidly and energetically enforced, shall be incorporated with human enlightenment and progress. The results of his indefatigable labours, as published to the world in his Institutes, Commentaries, and Sermons, are familiar to the students of theology; but his correspondence, so illustrative of his personal character, and the history of the times in which he lived, has never, until now, been collected and made accessible to the public. The Rev. Dr. Jules Bonnet, with the approbation of the French government, has with untiring and enthusiastic ardour, explored the hidden archives, and with such gratifying success, that four volumes of Calvin's Letters are now ready for the press.

As these Letters were written in Latin and French, it was at once seen to be important that English and American readers, who most thoroughly appreciate the character of this distinguished man, should have easy access to them in their own vernacular. They have accordingly been rendered into English under the immediate inspection of Mr. Bonnet. The first two volumes were published in Edinburgh, when circumstances, unnecessary to detail, arrested the further prosecution of the work.

A benevolent gentleman in New York proposed to purchase the copy-right of the Letters and transfer it to the Presbyterian Board of Publication. The arrangement has been completed, and to that Board, if we should not say to this country, is to be due the credit of first ushering to the world the rich and varied correspondence of one of the greatest and best men of the old world. The enterprise will be an expensive one, and it will require a liberal patronage. To the students of ecclesiastical history, the work will, in a certain sense, be indispensable; but every Presbyterian, who can command the means, should lend his aid to give success to the noble project. It should be mentioned, in this connection, that the truly estimable collector of the Letters, although he can never hope for any adequate pecuniary remuneration for his great labour, is exceedingly anxious that an edition of the Letters in their _original_ form should be published in Europe, and the gratification of this hope will very much depend on the successful sale of these volumes in this country. The Presbyterian Board of Publication have been solely actuated by public considerations in their participation in the publication, and it will afford them much pleasure, if it can possibly be done, to aid Mr. Bonnet in executing his original intention.

EDITOR OF THE BOARD.

PREFACE.

It was but a few days before his death, and in the course of one of the latest conversations handed down to us by Theodore Beza, that Calvin, pointing with failing hand to his most precious furniture, his manuscripts, and the archives of the correspondence that, during a quarter of a century, he had kept up with the most illustrious personages of Europe, requested that these memorials might be carefully preserved, and that a selection from his letters, made by some of his friends, should be presented to the Reformed Churches, in token of the interest and affection of their founder.

"migraturus ad deum johannes calvinus, quum de commodis ecclesiae ne tunc quidem cogitare desincret, sua mihi κειμήλια, id est schedarum ingentem acervum commendavit ut si quid in iis invenissem quo juvari possent ecclesiae, id quoque in lucem ederetur."--th. de bèze to the elector palatine, 1st february 1575. this letter is printed as a preface to calvin's latin correspondence.

This request of the dying Reformer, although treasured in the heart and memory of him who had succeeded to his plans and carried on his work, received but an imperfect fulfilment in the sixteenth century. The times were adverse, and the accomplishment of the duty was difficult. The plague, which had broken out for the third time at Geneva, and carried off thousands of victims; the great disasters, public and private; the shock of the painful events that had been occurring in France from the breaking out of the Civil War to the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; even the scruples of friendship, heightened by the perils that threatened the city of the Reformation itself, all seemed to conspire against the execution of Calvin's wish. "Without speaking," says Beza, "of the assistance that was indispensable for the examination of so extensive a correspondence, or of the time required for so laborious an undertaking, the calamities that befell our city, the plague that raged for many years, the convulsions of a neighbouring country, have more than once interrupted the progress of the work. The selection of the letters also involved great difficulties, at a time when men were predisposed to judge harshly and unfairly. There are many things that may be said or written in the familiar intercourse of sincere and ingenuous friendship, such as Calvin's, which can hardly be given to the public without inconvenience. We were obliged in our work to have respect to persons, times, and places." These scruples of an earnest and respectful disciple, anxious to avoid all collision with his contemporaries and at the same time to render justice to a great name, would be out of place now; but they were legitimate in an age of revolutions, when words were swords, and when the war of opinion, often sanguinary, outlasting its originators, was perpetuated in their writings.

"Multa quippe familiaritor inter amicos dici scribique consueverunt, praesertim ab ingenui spiritus hominibus, qualis fuit Calvinus si quisquam nostris temporibus alius, quae minime expediat emanare. Et habenda quoque nobis fuit non modo personarum, verum etiam temporum et locorum ratio."--Letter already cited.

Still it must be owned, that notwithstanding all these difficulties, the friends of Calvin did not shrink from the performance of their duty. Deeply impressed with the importance of the mission intrusted to them, they applied themselves to their task with religious fidelity. By their care, the originals or the copies of a vast number of letters addressed to France, England, Germany, and Switzerland, were collected at Geneva, and added to the precious deposit already confided to them. The archives of the city of Calvin received this treasure and preserved it faithfully through the storm that fell upon the churches of France, destroying or dispersing in foreign lands so many pages of their annals. By a remarkable dispensation, Geneva, the holy city of French Protestantism, the seminary of her ministers, of her doctors, and of her martyrs, after having conferred upon her, by the hand of Calvin, her creed and her form of worship, was also to preserve for her the titles of her origin and of her history. These titles are gloriously inscribed in the noble collection of autograph letters of the Reformer, for which we are indebted to the pious care of some refugees of the sixteenth century, whose names are almost lost in the lustre of those of Calvin and Beza, but whose services cannot be forgotten without ingratitude. Let us at least recall with a fitting tribute of grateful respect, the names of Jean de Budé, Laurent de Normandie, and especially of Charles de Jonvillers.

It is to the latter mainly that we must ascribe the honour of the formation of the magnificent epistolary collection that now adorns the Library of Geneva. Born of a noble family in the neighbourhood of Chartres, and carried across the Alps by the irresistible necessity of confessing the faith which he had embraced with all the ardour of youth, Charles de Jonvillers found in the affection of Calvin, a compensation for the voluntary sacrifice of fortune and country. Admitted, with his young patrician countrymen--the élite of the Reformed party--to the intimacy of the Reformer, he devoted himself with filial reverence and unbounded attachment to the great man whose faith and energy, moulding a rebellious people, had transformed an obscure Alpine city into a metropolis of the human mind. He became his secretary, after the celebrated lawyer, François Baudouin, and the minister Nicholas des Gallars, and henceforward assisted him in his laborious correspondence, followed him to the Auditoire and the Academy, and took down during Calvin's Lectures those luminous Commentaries, which were afterwards dedicated to the most illustrious personages of the age, and which modern theology has never surpassed.

Such was the man to whom the friendship of Calvin and the confidence of Beza assigned the great and laborious task of preparing for publication the Letters of the Reformer. He brought to it the zeal of a disciple and the filial reverence of a son who forgets himself in the execution of a sacred will; undertaking distant journeys to ensure its fulfilment, seeking everywhere for those precious documents in which were preserved the thoughts of the venerated master he had lost; and transcribing a vast number of letters with his own hand; supported in these costly and difficult researches by the consciousness of a duty accepted in humility and performed with faithfulness. This labour, early commenced and pursued for twenty years under the vigilant superintendence of Beza, was the origin of the collection of Calvin's Latin Correspondence published in 1575; a faithful but incomplete tribute to the memory of the Reformer by his disciples--an unfinished monument, which might indeed suffice the generation that was contemporary with the Reformation, but which is insufficient to satisfy the curiosity of our own.

"Ad eam rem unius praecipue Caroli Jonvillaei istarum rerum custodis fidem, diligentiam, operam denique nobis appositissimam fuisse profitemur."--Advertisement of Bèze to the reader.

It is the collection intitled:--_Calvini Epistolae et Responsa quibus interjectae sunt insignium in Ecclesia Dei virorun aliquot etiam Epistolae_, first published at Geneva, in 1575, reprinted in the following year at Lausanne, and inserted with some additions in the collection of Calvin's Works, _Calvini Opera_, tom. ix., edit. d'Amsterdam, 1671. This latter edition, one of the sources of the work which we now present to the public, comprises about 420 letters or memoirs, of which 284 are letters of the Reformer.

Nearly three centuries had passed away without adding anything to the work of Charles de Jonvillers and Beza. The Letters published by their care have been the common source from which the apologists and the adversaries of the Reformation have alike drawn; while the numerous unpublished documents preserved in the Library of Geneva, or collected in the Libraries of Zurich, Gotha, and Paris, have been forgotten. It was reserved for the present age to rescue these from unmerited oblivion, and thus to open up for history a mine of information hitherto unexplored.

And here justice compels us to acknowledge, with gratitude, the obligations of this unpublished correspondence to the recent labours and investigations of several distinguished Protestant authors. We refer especially to the "Life of Calvin," by Dr. Paul Henry of Berlin,--a pious monument raised in honour of the Reformer by a descendant of the refugees, and enriched with a number of Letters from the libraries of France and Switzerland; to the learned researches of Professor Bretschneider, the editor of the Gotha Letters; the important work of Ruchat, re-edited by the talented continuator of the great historian Jean de Müller, Professor Vulliemin of Lausanne, with an extensive Appendix, containing precious fragments of Calvin's French Correspondence, reproduced in the "Chronicle" of M. Crottet. And now, having made these acknowledgments, we may legitimately claim for ourselves the privilege of offering to the public, for the first time, a general and authentic collection of Calvin's Correspondence, the greater part of which has, up to the present time, been buried in the dust of libraries, and altogether unpublished.

_Das Leben Calvins_, 3 vols. in 8vo. Hambourg, 1835-1842.

_Johannis Calvini, Bezae, aliorumque litterae quaedam nondum editae_, 1 vol. in 8vo. Leipsic, 1835. Published on the occasion of the Reformation Jubilee at Geneva.

_Histoire de la Réformation en Suisse_, 7 vols. in 8vo. Lausanne, 1838.

_Petite Chronique Protestante de France_, XVI^e Siècle; 1 vol. in 8vo. Paris, 1846.

This collection is the result of five years of study and research among the archives of Switzerland, France, Germany, and England. Charged by the French Government, at the suggestion of M. Mignet, under the liberal administration of two eminent ministers, MM. de Salvandy and de Falloux, with a scientific mission that enabled us to gather the first materials of a correspondence, the richest depositories of which were in foreign countries, and sustained in our labours by the cordial sympathy of those most distinguished in the world of science and literature, we have spared nothing that might ensure the completeness of a collection which throws so much light on the history of the great religious revolution of the sixteenth century.

The correspondence of Calvin begins in his youth and is only closed on his deathbed, (May 1528 to May 1564.) It thus embraces, with few intervals, all the phases of his life; from the obscure scholar of Bourges and Paris escaping from the stake by flying into exile, to the triumphant Reformer, who was able in dying, to contemplate his work as accomplished. Nothing can exceed the interest of this correspondence, in which an epoch and a life of the most absorbing interest are reflected in a series of documents equally varied and genuine; and in which the familiar effusions of friendship are mingled with the more serious questions of theology, and with the heroic breathings of faith. From his bed of suffering and of continued labours, Calvin followed with an observant eye the great drama of the Reformation, marking its triumphs and its reverses in every State of Europe. Invested, in virtue of his surpassing genius, with an almost universal apostolate, he wielded an influence as varied and as plastic as his activity. He exhorts with the same authority the humble ministers of the Gospel and the powerful monarchs of England, Sweden, and Poland. He holds communion with Luther and Melanchthon, animates Knox, encourages Coligny, Condé, Jeanne d' Albret, and the Duchess of Ferrara; while in his familiar letters to Farel, Viret, and Theodore Beza, he pours out the overflowings of a heart filled with the deepest and most acute sensibility. The same man, worn by watchings and sickness, but rising by the energy of the soul above the weakness of the body, overturns the party of the Libertines, lays the foundations of the greatness of Geneva, establishes foreign churches, strengthens the martyrs, dictates to the Protestant princes the wisest and most perspicuous counsels; negotiates, argues, teaches, prays, and with his latest breath, gives utterance to words of power, which posterity receives as the political and religious testament of the man.

These indications are sufficient to show the interest that attaches to the correspondence of the Reformer. It is the common inheritance of the countries emancipated by the Reformation and still animated by its spirit; as well as of all the Churches, however diverse in origin and varying in their confessions of faith, which manifest to the world the spiritual unity of the Church of Christ. England's portion in this precious legacy is neither the least, nor the least interesting. Observant of the great work of religious Reformation which, since the time of Wicliff, had been going on in that country, and which was destined to have the singular privilege of placing the civil and political liberties of the nation in the glorious keeping of the Gospel, Calvin condemned with great severity the spiritual tyranny of Henry the Eighth, and the endeavours of that prince to substitute a sanguinary imperial popedom for that of Rome. During the reign of his successor, he exercises a marked influence in the councils of the crown, and traces with vigorous hand, for the Duke of Somerset, a plan of religious reformation in which the conservative spirit is happily blended with the liberal and progressive tendency. He addresses the young King Edward VI., so prematurely withdrawn from the love of his subjects, in a strain of exhortation dictated by paternal solicitude and respectful affection:--"It is a great thing to be a king, and especially of such a country; and yet I doubt not that you regard it as above all comparison greater to be a Christian. It is, indeed, an inestimable privilege that God has granted to you, Sire, that you should be a Christian King, and that you should serve him as his lieutenant to uphold the kingdom of Jesus Christ in England."[9]--The death of this young King, so well fitted to carry out the designs of Providence for his people, and the restoration of Popery under Mary, heavily afflicted Calvin. He rejoices in the accession of Elizabeth, freely exhorts her ministers, and his advice, dictated by a wisdom and prescience to which time has set its seal, furnishes the most remarkable proof of the faith and the genius of the Reformer.

We give here entire the striking passage, of which a fac-simile will be found at the commencement of this volume.--"Or au pseaulme présent il est parlé de la noblesse et dignité de l'Eglise, laquelle doit tellement ravir à soy et grans et petits que tous les biens et honueurs de la terre ne les retiennent, ny empeschent qu'ils ne prétendent à ce but d'estre enrolléz au peuple de Dieu. C'est grand chose d'estre Roy, mesme d'un tel païs; toutefois je ne doubte pas que vous n'estimiez sans comparaison mieux d'estre Chrestien. C'est doncq un privilège inestimable que Dieu vous a faict, Sire, que vous soiez Roy Chréstien, voire que vous luy serviez de lieutenant pour ordonner et maintenir le Royaulme de Jésus Christ en Angleterre."

Having pointed out the historical value of this correspondence, it may not be out of place to refer to its literary merit. Trained in the twofold school of profane and sacred Antiquity, of the Church and of the world, Calvin's Latin is that of a contemporary of Cicero or of Seneca, whose graceful and concise style he reproduces without effort. He writes in French as one of the creators of that language, which is indebted to him for some of its finest characteristics. Writing before Montaigne, he may be regarded as the precursor and the model of that great school of the seventeenth century which could only fight him with weapons from his own armoury, and which could not surpass him either in loftiness of thought or in stately majesty of style. The French letters of Calvin, worthy of the author of the immortal preface to the "Christian Institutes," contain many admirable passages hitherto unknown, and are models of eloquence: they will be found in this Collection interspersed with the Latin Correspondence from which they were detached in the original Paris edition, and will present, in chronological order, a series of moral and religious studies--a genuine portrait of the Reformer drawn by his own hand, in the original documents, which we now, for the first time, present to the historian.

The seasonableness of such a publication cannot be denied. The great debate ever pending between the Papacy and the Reformation is renewed in our days with fresh vigour in almost all the countries of Europe. Attack provokes defence; and in the strife of opinion, the rights of justice and of truth are too frequently disregarded. While some rare spirits, enlightened by the study of history, or the attentive observation of the effect of the dogmas of either religion on the moral conduct of its votaries, rise superior to the mists of prejudice and form a judgment which is moulding that of posterity, the adepts of a school, unhappily celebrated as the admirers of excesses which the sincere disciples of Christianity or of philosophy have alike reproved, have nought but malediction and insult for the glorious Revolution stamped by the names of Luther and of Calvin. Never, perhaps, were detraction and outrage let loose with such fury against these great deliverers of conscience; never have their intentions been so audaciously misrepresented, their actions so grossly caricatured. To the falsehoods of a party that shrinks not from slander, let us oppose the impartial evidence of history; let us learn from these great men themselves what they desired, what they did, what they suffered; and let us seek from them alone the secret of the Revolution which they achieved.

It is only necessary to quote the names of the two illustrious French historians, M. Guizot and M. Miguet, who in their writings have rendered a respectful homage to the religious and moral influence of the Reformation. A distinguished writer, M. Charles de Rémusat, has lately published, under the title of "De la Réforme et du Protestantisme," an eloquent paper, which might well inaugurate a new era of justice and impartiality in historical writing.

We need only name "L'Histoire de Calvin," by M. Audin, in itself entirely devoid of truthfulness, and the fruitful source of calumnious and lying pamphlets against the memory of the Reformer.

The Correspondence of Calvin will, we believe, throw a fresh light upon those grave questions which Modern Science, worthy of the name, now proposes to herself with a desire for impartial justice which does her honour. It is by this sentiment that we may venture to say we have been animated, in the course of the long researches which have enabled us to offer this collection to the public. Guided solely by the love of truth, and shrinking from no revelation that was guarantied by authentic documents, we have rejected no sources of information, nor omitted any evidence. Our ambition has been to make Calvin live again in his letters--to shew him as he was, with his austere and inflexible convictions, which yet were far from intolerant, in the intercourse of friendship and the freedom of the domestic circle--with that stern self-sacrifice of his life to duty which alone explains its power and excuses its errors--with the failings which were the heritage of his times and those which were peculiar to himself. History, interrogated in original documents, is not a panegyric; it throws no veil over the shortcomings of its heroes, but it remembers that they are men, and draws lessons alike from their infirmities and from their greatness.

We cannot close this Preface without offering the tribute of our sincere gratitude to those friends in England and on the Continent whose kind encouragement has favoured the publication. And we would address our first acknowledgments to the Librarians of the Continental Libraries, who eagerly placed at our disposal the whole MS. collections committed to their charge. We have pleasure in paying the same tribute to one of the most distinguished citizens of Geneva, Colonel Henri Tronchin, who so liberally opened to us the precious documents that have been transmitted to him through a series of illustrious ancestors; and we regard it as a peculiar privilege to record our obligations, while at Geneva, to the encouraging kindness of two men eminent in her sacred literature, M. le Pasteur Gaussen, and to the learned historian of the Reformation, M. le Docteur Merle d'Aubigné, whose patronage, which was given as a matter of course to the publication of Calvin's Correspondence, has been the means of attracting to us valuable sympathies in the United States, in England, and in that noble country of Scotland, where the name of Calvin, gloriously associated with that of Knox, receives an honourable tribute in the labours of a Society devoted to the translation of his writings. It is with heartfelt satisfaction that we inscribe on the first page of the collection, and recall in one grateful thought, the names of the three generous patrons of the undertaking, Mr. Douglas of Cavers, Mr. Henderson of Park, and Mr. James Lenox of New York.

Our personal thanks we may surely be permitted to offer to the translator of the work. Nothing could exceed the difficulty of rendering Calvin's letters in English, and of harmonizing the antique style of the originals with the structure of a modern language. We believe that this difficulty has been happily overcome by the translator, who has devoted himself with persevering ardour, and with a sort of filial piety, to a work requiring so great an amount of patience and of learning. If, through the transparent mirror of a scrupulously faithful translation, the reader is enabled to follow the grave religious beauty of the originals,--if he is brought, as it were, into communion with the soul of Calvin himself, in the fine and varied effusions of his correspondence, he will be indebted for this privilege to the labour of Mr. Constable, revised by the Rev. Dr. Cunningham, Principal of the New College, Edinburgh, with a degree of watchful care and enlightened solicitude that cannot be too highly appreciated.