he was immediately appointed teachur of theology. He wno also elected preacher by the magistrates with the consent of the people, but this office he would not accept until it had been repeatedly pressed upon him. His services seem to have been rendered for some time gratui tously, for in February 1537, there is an entry in the city registers to the effect that six crowns had been voted to
him, " since he has as yet hardly received anything."Calvin was in his twenty-eighth year when he was thus constrained to settle at Geneva; and in this city the rest of his life, with the exception of a brief interval, was spent. The post to which he was thus called was not an easy one. Though the people of Geneva had cast off the yoke of Rome, they were still " but very imperfectly en lightened in divine knowledge ; they had as yet hardly emerged from the filth of the papacy."[1] This laid them open to the incursions of those fanatical teachers, whom the excitement attendant upon the Reformation had called forth, and who hung mischievously upon the rear of the reforming body. To obviate the evils thence resulting, Calvin, in union with Farel, drew up a condensed state ment of Christian doctrine consisting of twenty-one articles. This the citizens were summoned, in parties of ten each, to profess and swear to as the confession of their faith a process which, though not in accordance with modern notions of the best way of establishing men in the faith, was gone through, Calvin tells us, " with much satisfaction." As the people took this oath in the capacity of citizens, we may see here the basis laid for that theocratic system which subsequently became peculiarly characteristic of the Genevan Dolity. Deeply convinced of the importance of education f or the young, Calvin and his coadjutors were solicitous to establish schools throughout the canton, and to enforce on parents the sending of their children to them ; and as he had no faith in education apart from religious training, he drew up an elementary catechism of Christian doctrine which the children had to learn whilst they were receiving secular instruction. Of the troubles which arose from fanatical teachers, the chief proceeded from the efforts of the Anabaptists ; but these Calvin and his colleagues so effectually silenced by means of a public disputation held on the 18th of March 1537, that they never afterwards appeared at Geneva. In the course of this year also, the peace of Calvin and his friends was much disturbed, and their work interrupted, by a turbulent and unprincipled preacher named Peter Caroli, who, after many changes of religious profession (with none of which, however, had he associated anything of true religion, or even much of ordinary morality), had assumed the character of a stickler for orthodoxy. In this character he accused the Geneva divines of Sabellianism and Arianism, because they would not enforce the Athanasian creed, and had not used the words " Trinity" and " Person" in the confession they had drawn up. In a synod held at Bern the matter was fully discussed, when a verdict was given in favour of the Geneva divines, and Caroli deposed from his office and banished. Thus ended an affair which seems to have occasioned Calvin much more uneasiness than the char acter of his assailant, and the manifest falsehood of the charge brought against him, would seem to justify. Two brief tracts, intended to expose the evils and warn against the seductions of Popery, one entitled De Fngienda Idolatria, the other De Papisticis Sacerdotiis, must be added to the labours of Calvin this year.
Hardly was the affair of Caroli settled, when new and severer trials came upon the Genevan Reformers. The severe simplicity of the ritual which F arel had introduced, and to which Calvin had conformed ; the strictness with which the ministers sought to enforce not only the laws of morality, but certain sumptuary regulations respecting the dress and mode of living of the citizens ; and their deter mination in spiritual matters not to submit to the least dictation from the civil power, led to such violent dis sensions that Calvin and his colleagues refused to administer the sacrament to the people. For this they were banished from the city. They went first to Bern, and soon after to Zurich, where a synod of the Swiss pastors had been convened. Before this assembly they pleaded their cause, and stated what were the points on which they were prepared to insist as needful for the proper discipline of the church. They declared that they would yield in the matter of ceremonies so far as to employ unleavened bread in the eucharist, to use fonts in baptism, and to allow festival days, provided the people might pursue their ordinary avocations after public service. These Calvin regarded as matters of indifference, provided the magistrates did not make them of importance, by seeking to enforce them; and he was the more willing to concede them, because he hoped thereby to meet the wishes of the Bernese brethren, whose ritual was less simple than that established by Farel at Geneva. But he and his colleagues insisted, on the other hand, that for the proper maintenance of dis cipline, there should be a division of parishes that excommunications should be permitted, and should be under the power of elders chosen by the council, in conjunc tion with the clergy that order should be observed in the admission of preachers and that only the clergy should officiate in ordination by the laying on of hands, It was proposed also, as conducive to the welfare of the church, that the sacrament of the Lord s Supper should be ad ministered more frequently, at least once every month, and that congregational singing of psalms should be practised in the churches. On these terms the syiiod interceded with the Genevese to restore their pastors ; but through the opposition of the Bernese this was frustrated, and a second edict of banishment was the only response.
Calvin and Farel betook themselves, under these circum stances, to Basel, where they soon after separated, Farel to go to Neufchatel, and Calvin to Strasburg. At the latter place Calvin resided till the autumn of 1541, occupying himself partly in literary exertions, partly as a preacher in the French church, and partly as a lecturer on theology. In 1539 he attended the convention at Frankfort as the companion of Bucer, and in the following year he appeared at that at Hagenau and Worms, as the delegate from the city of Strasburg. He was present also at the diet at Ratisbon, where he became personally acquainted with Melanchthon, and formed with him a friendship which lasted through life. It is to this period of his life that we owe the completed form of his Instilutio, his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, and his Tract on the Lord s Supper. Notwithstanding his manifold engagements, he found time to attend to the tenderer affections ; for it was during his residence at Strasburg that he married Idelette de Bures or van Buren, the widow of a person named Storder, whom he had converted from Anabaptism. In her Calvin found, to use his own words, " the excellent companion of his life," a "precious help " to him amid his manifold labours and frequent infirmities. She died, in 1549, to the great grief of her husband, who never ceased to mourn her loss.
in Geneva. An attempt was made by Sadolet, bishop of Carpentras, to take advantage of this so as to restore the papal supremacy in that district ; but this design Calvin, watchful over the interests of his ungrateful flock, though exiled from them, completely frustrated by writing such a
reply to the letter which the bishop had addressed to the- ↑ Beza, Vit. Calv. an. 1536.
