The Age of the Reformation by Albert Pollard

Author:Albert Pollard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pronoun

1536-64 Calvin’s spiritual development.

Calvin’s life from this point onwards falls into three parts : his first stay in Geneva from July, 1536, to March, 1538; his residence in Strasburg from September, 1538, to September, 1541; and his second stay in Geneva from the last date till his death, May 27, 1564. In the first period, he, in company with Farel, made an attempt to organize the Church, and reform the mind and manners of Geneva, and failed; his exile, formally voted by the Council, was the penalty of his failure. In the second period he was professor of theology and French preacher at Strasburg, a trusted divine and adviser, a delegate to the Protestant Churches of Germany, which he learned to know better, making the acquaintance of Melanchthon, and becoming more appreciative of Luther. At Strasburg some of his best literary work was done - his Letter to Cardinal Sadoleto (in its way his most perfect production), his Commentary on the Romans, a Treatise on the Lord’s Supper, the second Latin and the first French edition of his Institutio. In the third period he introduced and completed his legislation at Geneva, taught, preached, and published there, watched the Churches everywhere, and conducted the most extensive correspondence of his day. In these twenty-eight years he did a work which changed the face of Christendom.

It has been a subject of perhaps equal reproach among his enemies and praise by his friends that, as Beza says, Calvin “in doctrine made scarcely any change”. For a young man at twenty-six to reach his final conclusions in the realms of thought and belief, especially after a radical revolution of mind, would be matter of congratulation for his enemies rather than for his admirers. But the judgment rests on a double mistake, biographical and historical. As a matter of fact, few men may have changed less; but few also have developed more. Every crisis in his career taught him something, and so enhanced his capacity. His studies of Stoicism showed him the value of morals; and he learned how to emphasize the sterner ethical qualities as well as thehumaner, and the more clement by the side of the higher, public virtues. His early humanism made him a scholar and an exegete, a master of elegant Latinity, of lucid and incisive speech, of a graphic pen and historical imagination. His juristic studies gave him an idea of law, through which he interpreted the more abstract notions of theology, and a love of order, which compelled him to organize his Church. His imagination, playing upon the primitive Christian literature, helped him to see the religion Jesus instituted as Jesus Himself saw it; while the forces visible around him-the superstitions, the regnant andunreproved vices, the people so quickly sinning and so easily forgiven, the relics so innumerable and so fictitious, the acts and articles of worship, and especially the Sacraments deified and turned into substitutes for Deity induced him to judge the system that claimed to be the sole interpreter and representative of Christ as a crafty compound of falsehood and truth.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.