No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
‘For all his abhorrence of Rome, he was after his manner as good a Churchman as any Pope’. Such, whether it be intended to express approval or the reverse, seems to be a sound judgment on Calvin's churchmanship. To a liberallike Grosclaude, it was indeed his chief fault that he could not rid himself entirely of Roman ideas: that he continued to regard the Church as depository and dispenser of the means of grace, rather than as a free association of like-minded believers. Unity and universality were lost in the general turmoil of the Reformation; but that outcome was the direct opposite of what this allegedly ‘devil-worshipping genius’ had intended; for Calvin stressed, more strongly than any other Reformer, the catholicity of the Una Sancta. And if the ideal of a Free Church in a free state has grown on Calvinist soil, Calvin himself would have repudiated such a deduction from his doctrine of the Crown Rights of the Redeemer. His entire object was to bring human life in its totality under common obedience to God in Christ.
page 371 note 1 Hunt, R. N. Carew, Calvin (1933), p. 136.Google Scholar
page 371 note 2 Grosclaude, C., Exposition et critique de l'ecclésiologie de Calvin (1896), p. 8.Google Scholar
page 371 note 3 Nickerson, Hoffman, The Loss of Unity (1961), chap. xi.Google Scholar
page 371 note 4 Warfield, B. B., John Calvin, the Man and his Work (1909), p. 15.Google Scholar
page 371 note 5 Moltmann, J. (ed.), Caluin-Studien 1959 (1960), p. 71.Google Scholar
page 371 note 6 de la Tour, P. Imbart, Les Origines de la Réforme IV (1935), pp. 52–53.Google Scholar
page 372 note 1 Institutio (1536), cap. ii (Opera Selecta, 1, p. 87).
page 372 note 2 Inst. Praefatio.
page 372 note 3 ibid., II.xv.3.
page 372 note 4 Comment, on I Cor. 10.3.
page 372 note 5 ibid., 10.4.
page 372 note 6 Wallace, R. S., Calvin's Doctrine of the Word and Sacraments (1953), p. 155Google Scholar. I owe a number of references to this book.
page 372 note 7 Kidd, B. J., Documents illustrative of the Continental Reformation (1911), p. 650.Google Scholar
page 372 note 8 Mackinnon, J., Calvin and the Reformation (1936), p. 80.Google Scholar
page 372 note 9 Inst. IV.xii.18; cf. Cassian, Inst. V.23.
page 372 note 10 Kidd, , Documents, p. 635.Google Scholar
page 373 note 1 ibid., p. 508.
page 373 note 2 Whale, J. S., The Protestant Tradition (1955), p. 130Google Scholar; no reference given.
page 373 note 3 Opera Selecta, I, p. 466.
page 373 note 4 Inst. IV.iii.4.
page 373 note 5 ‘The charge which the Lord gave us has been altogether extraordinary when He employed our work to restore the churches’ (letter to the King of Poland, 5th Dec. 1554, in Opera, XV, p. 335).Google Scholar
page 373 note 6 Inst. IV.iv. I. His own fourfold order is produced by dividing bishops into pastors and doctors (ibid., IV.iii.4 and 8); ordination is a sacrament (ibid., IV.xiv.20, xix.28), for which imposition of hands is desirable but not essential (Kidd, , Documents, p. 592Google Scholar, Inst. IV.iii.16).
page 373 note 7 ibid., IV.iv.a; cf. Comment, on Tit. 1.5 (‘we learn from this passage that there was not then such equality among the ministers that none had some authority and counsel above the others’).
page 373 note 8 Inst. IV.iv.4; writing to King Sigismund (Opera, XV, pp. 332ff) Calvin is ready to allow an archbishop and bishops, but purely as presidents of the Polish church courts.
page 373 note 9 Inst. IV.xi.6. At the Colloquy of Worms in 1540 Calvin said, ‘I am quite sure that the Lord willed to remove from the Church not only all ambition, but also all pre-eminence (praefecturam).… He instituted apostles, prophets, teachers, without any mention of a primacy. It is thus certain that Christ did not wish there to be one’ (see Doumergue, E., Jean Calvin, Us hommes et les choses de son temps, II (1902), p. 613).Google Scholar
page 373 note 10 Inst. IV.ii.6; cf. Comment, on Eph. 4.11.
page 374 note 1 Against Cyprian's desire for popular election, Calvin quotes Virgil(!), Aen. II.39 on the contrary passions of the crowd (Opera Selecta, I, p. 214); he was genuinely afraid of radical democracy, and ‘under the theoretical forms of election, it was a system of co-option that Calvin established’ (Imbart de la Tour, op cit., IV., p. 107; on the next page he points out that Calvin's system of appointment was parallel to that of Roman canon law prior to the Decretals).
page 374 note 2 Inst. IV.iv.
page 374 note 3 ibid., IV.ii. 10; this explains, if it does not excuse, the vehemence of his vituperation.
page 374 note 4 ibid., I V.i. 12 and 16; cf. Hunter, A. Mitchell, The Teaching of Calvin (1950), p. 158.Google Scholar
page 374 note 5 Inst. IV.i.12. The Apostles' Creed is of course treated, throughout the Institutes, as a ‘brief and simple summary of Christianity’.
page 374 note 6 Comment, on I Cor. 1.2.
page 374 note 7 ‘Christ is the one and only foundation of the Church’ (Comment, on I Cor. 3.11); ‘Christ is actually the foundation on which the Church is built by the preaching of doctrine’ (Comment, on Eph. 2.20).
page 374 note 8 ‘Inst. IV.iii.I.
page 374 note 9 ibid., IV.ii.2. ‘In what else does succession consist, except in perpetuity of doctrine?’ (Opera, XXXV, p. 611).
page 374 note 10 Inst. IV.ii.3.
page 375 note 1 ibid., IV.ii.9.
page 375 note 2 ibid., IV.ii.10.
page 375 note 3 ibid., IV.v and ix.
page 375 note 4 ibid., IV.xi.7.
page 375 note 5 ibid., IV.x.II and xix.26.
page 375 note 6 Epistola de fugiendis impiorum illicitis sacris (1537), in Opera Selecta, I, p. 289.
page 375 note 7 Inst. IV.ii. II; Roman baptism is valid if administered by a priest, if by a woman it is a ‘grievous sin’ (IV.xv.22; cf. Opera, XI, p. 625).
page 375 note 8 Inst. IV.ii.12.
page 375 note 9 ibid., IV.xvi.I.
page 375 note 10 ibid., Praefatio.
page 375 note 11 ibid., IV.i.13 and 23.
page 375 note 12 ibid., IV.xvi.32.
page 375 note 13 See the studied moderation of the Petit Traicté de la Saincte Cène (1541), especially Opera Selecta, I, pp. 527ff.
page 375 note 14 Doumergue, V, p. 336.
page 375 note 15 References in Moltmann, , Calvin-Studien, p. 134.Google Scholar
page 376 note 1 Reid, J. K. S. (transl.), Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God (1961), pp. 164–165.Google Scholar
page 376 note 2 Inst. IV.i.I.
page 376 note 3 ibid., IV.i.4; cf. Comment, on Gal. 4.26 (‘whoever refuses to be a child of the Church vainly desires to have God as Father; for it is only by the ministry of the Church that God begets and nourishes children’). But after birth there must be growth, and Calvin condemns the ‘popish system’ under which the people are kept ‘in absolute infancy’ (Comment, on Eph. 4.14).
page 376 note 4 Institutio (1536), cap. ii (Opera Selecta, I, p. 86).
page 376 note 5 Doumergue, V, p. 8, note 5; Inst. IV.i.3.
page 376 note 6 Comment, on Eph. 2.19.
page 376 note 7 Comment, on Isaiah 54.13.
page 376 note 8 ibid., 33.24; cf. Inst. IV.i.20.
page 376 note 9 cap. xv (Opera Selecta, II, pp. 88–89).
page 377 note 1 cf. Macpherson, John, Doctrine of the Church in Scottish Theology (1903), p. 2Google Scholar (‘the studies which these divines prosecuted were christological rather than ecclesiastical; when they argued about the Church it was in order to exalt Christ’).
page 377 note 2 Inst. IV.xiv.16 and xvii.i 1. Christ remains the substance although the wicked fail to receive Him (Comment, on I Cor. 10.5), just as God's Word remains His Word even if it is not obeyed (Inst. IV.xiv.7).
page 377 note 3 Troeltsch, E., The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (E.T. 1931), II, p. 584.Google Scholar
page 377 note 4 Comment, on Rom. 6.3 and 5.
page 377 note 5 Comment, on I Cor. 1.2 (‘it is a dangerous temptation to think there is no Church, where perfect purity is lacking’).
page 377 note 6 Inst. IV.i.23.
page 377 note 7 Comment, on Eph. 4.13.
page 377 note 8 ibid., 5.27.
page 377 note 9 Troeltsch, op. cit., p. 586.
page 378 note 1 ibid., pp. 588, 591.
page 378 note 2 Opera Selecta, I, pp. 463–4.
page 378 note 3 Calvin thought that every true pastor must have his heart thus offered (Opera, XXVII, p. 482), and for those who served in France these were no idle words.
page 378 note 4 Sermon on II Tim. 2.19.
page 378 note 5 Buess, E. ‘Prädestination und Kirche in Calvins Institutio’, in Theologische Zeilschrift, XII (1956), pp. 347–361.Google Scholar
page 378 note 6 Those who wish to become partakers of so great a benefit must be a part of Israel, that is of the Church, out of which there can be neither salvation nor truth’ (Comment, on Isaiah 49.7); ‘by nature we are aliens from the Kingdom of God’ (ibid., 49–21).
page 379 note 1 Inst. IV.xiv.14 and xv.22;cf. Hunter, A. Mitchell, The Teaching of Calvin (1950), p. 155Google Scholar. But ‘by neglecting baptism (when available) we are excluded from salvation, and in this sense I acknowledge that it is necessary’ (Comment, on John 3.5), so that disregard of the sacraments amounts to ‘neglect of the whole gospel, for we must not separate those things which the Lord has commanded us to join’ (Comment, on Isaiah 7.12).
page 379 note 2 Inst. IV.i.2.
page 379 note 3 Lecerf, A., Études Calvinistes (1949), p. 56.Google Scholar
page 379 note 4 op. cit., p. 58.
page 379 note 5 Comment, on I Cor. 16.19.
page 379 note 6 Letter to John Knox, 7th Nov. 1559, on baptising the children of idolaters or excommunicates; see Hunter, op. cit., p. 178.
page 380 note 1 Comment, on Ps. 103.17.
page 380 note 2 Comment, on Acts 8.37.
page 380 note 3 Kidd, , Documents, p. 519.Google Scholar
page 380 note 4 Doumergue, II, pp. 236, 239.
page 380 note 5 de la Tour, P. Imbart, Les Origines de la Réforme, IV (1935), p. 109.Google Scholar
page 380 note 6 Hunt, R. N. Carew, Calvin (1933), pp. 136–137Google Scholar; magistrates are ‘God's vicars’ (1537 Confession of Faith, cap. xxi, in Kidd, , Documents, p. 571Google Scholar, cf. Inst. IV.xx.4).
page 380 note 7 Doumergue, II, p. 249.
page 380 note 8 Comment, on John 3.16.
page 380 note 9 Comment, on Acts 3.25.
page 381 note 1 Opera, VIII, p. 114.
page 381 note 2 Institutio (1536), cap. ii (Opera Selecta, I, p. 88).
page 381 note 3 ibid., (p. 89), cf. Inst. IV.i.8.
page 381 note 4 He was notoriously reticent about his own conversion, and I know of no passage in which he makes an experience of it essential to salvation. Repentance and faith, on the other hand, are constant exercises of the Christian life.
page 381 note 5 Inst. IV.i.9.
page 381 note 6 ibid., IV.i.10.
page 381 note 7 Hunter, op. cit., p. 297.
page 381 note 8 Lecerf, , Études Calvinistes, p. 35.Google Scholar
page 381 note 9 Opera, VI, p. 174, n.4; Opera Selecta, II, p. 19; the formula occurs in his Strasbourg liturgy, freely adapted from Bucer's German Mass.
page 382 note 1 Inst. IV.xiv.18.
page 382 note 2 Warfield, B. B., Calvin and Calvinism (1931), p. 37.Google Scholar
page 382 note 3 Lecerf, op. cit., p. 68; for what precedes see pp. 55–56.
page 382 note 4 ‘But because Paul calls the Church “Christ” this verse is full of rare comfort. For Christ invests us with this honour that He wishes to be discerned and recognised, not only in His own Person, but also in His members' (Comment, on I Cor. 12.12).
page 382 note 5 Comment, on Eph. i.10;cf. ibid., 4.6 (‘Christ cannot be divided. Faith cannot be rent. There are not various baptisms, but one which is common to all. God cannot cease to be one and unchangeable. It cannot but be our duty to cherish holy unity, which is bound by so many ties’), and Comment, on I Cor. I.12 (‘the unity of the Church rests mainly on this one thing, that we all depend on Christ alone’).
page 382 note 6 McEwen, J. S., The Faith of John Knox (1961), pp. 56–57Google Scholar; on p. 53 he misinterprets Calvin's teaching on Baptism, and then transfers it to the Eucharist.
page 382 note 7 Inst. IV.xvii.2.
page 382 note 8 ibid., IV.xvii.38.
page 383 note 1 ibid., IV.xiv.4 and xvii.39.
page 383 note 2 Comment, on Eph. 2.20.
page 383 note 3 Letter to Bullinger, 12th March 1540, quoted in Moltmann, , Calvin-Studien, p. 74.Google Scholar
page 383 note 4 Comment, on Zech. 8.23.
page 383 note 5 Comment, on Isaiah 33.24.
page 383 note 6 Comment, on Ezek. 13.9.
page 383 note 7 Inst. IV.i.10.
page 383 note 8 ibid., IV.i.4. Much more could be quoted on the same lines, e.g. Comment, on Hebr. 10.26 (‘such as forsake the Church … wholly alienate themselves from Christ’).
page 383 note 9 Institutio (1536), cap. ii (Opera Selecta, I, p. 86), Inst. IV.1.2.
page 383 note 10 Comment, on I Cor. 1.10.
page 384 note 1 ibid., 1.13.
page 384 note 2 ibid., 4.20; cf. Inst. IV.ii.4.
page 384 note 3 Inst. IV.viii.I.
page 384 note 4 ibid., IV.viii.8.
page 384 note 5 ibid., IV.viii.10, ix.9 and ix.13.
page 384 note 6 Comment, on Eph. 4.11; cf. Inst. IV.iii.2, and Sermon on Deut. 10.8–11 in Opera, XXVII, pp. 27–28 (‘when there are no ministers, no men appointed to teach the people, what remains? Only a horrid confusion’).
page 384 note 7 Inst. IV.i.5. The pastor, as a humble servant of the Word, is God's ambassador and mouth, to be received as an angel and as Christ Himself (Comment, on Gal. 4.14), and the pulpit is ‘the sacred throne of Jesus Christ’ (De scandalis, in Opuscules, p. 1187).
page 384 note 8 Comment, on Haggai 2.10–14.
page 384 note 9 Opera Selecta, I, p. 414; the passage appears in Institutio (1536) and in the Genevan Catechism of 1537.
page 384 note 10 Comment, on Gal. 3.1.
page 385 note 1 Inst. I.xi.7.
page 385 note 2 On preschoit et puis c'est tout' (from his farewell address in Kidd, , Documents, p. 649).Google Scholar
page 385 note 3 Mackinnon, J., Calvin and the Reformation (1936), p. 78.Google Scholar
page 385 note 4 Opera, V, p. 319; Latin text in Opera Selecta, I, p. 428.
page 385 note 5 Supplex exhortatio ad Caesarem Carolum quintum (1543), in Opuscules, p. 508.
page 385 note 6 Letter to Somerset, 22nd Oct. 1548, in Opera, XIII, p. 89; cf. Inst. IV.xii.I.
page 385 note 7 Details in J. Mackinnon, op. cit., pp. goff and 171; Hunter, op. cit., pp. 208ff and 225–6; Doumergue, V, p. 328.
page 385 note 8 ‘There is nothing in greater opposition to the discipline of Christ than tyranny; and the door is wide open to it, if all the power is surrendered to one man’ (Comment, on I Cor. 5.4); ‘the apostles have transmitted to us a contrary practice’ (letter of 27th Aug. 1554 in Hunter, op. cit., p. 226); cf. Inst. IV.xi.6.
page 385 note 9 Mackinnon, op. cit., p. 163.
page 385 note 10 Institutio (1536), cap. ii (Opera Selecta, I, p. 91); Inst. IV. Xii.8.
page 386 note 1 Opera, XXVI, p. 553.
page 386 note 2 ibid., LIV, p. 562.
page 386 note 3 Doumergue, II, pp. 223–4.
page 386 note 4 ‘The spiritual Kingdom of Christ and civil government are entirely distinct’ (Inst 1. IV.xx.I).
page 386 note 5 ibid., IV.xi.3.
page 386 note 6 The twelve elders annually appointed by the Small Council are most often called ‘comys ou députez par la Seygneurie’ (Doumergue V, pp. 170 and 185); cf. Moltmann, , Calvin-Studien, p. 165Google Scholar, for the responsible place assigned by Calvin to the laity.
page 386 note 7 Inst. IV.i.22.
page 386 note 8 cf. Hunter, op. cit., p. 208; Ainslie, J. L., Doctrines of Ministerial Order (1940), PP 59–60Google Scholar
page 386 note 9 Doumergue, II, pp. 412–13; cf. Inst. III.iv.12 and 14 (on the benefits of private absolution).
page 386 note 10 Inst. IV.xix.13.
page 386 note 11 Doumergue, V, p. 364.
page 386 note 12 Inst. IV.xii.8.
page 386 note 13 ibid., IV.xix.14.
page 387 note 1 Kampschulte, F. W., Johann Calvin (1899), II, pp. 337–340.Google Scholar
page 387 note 2 Doumergue, V, p. 258.
page 387 note 3 ibid., p. 259; Calvin regretted that the doctor's salary was paid by the State rather than the Church.
page 387 note 4 Mackinnon, op. cit., p. 276.
page 387 note 5 Hunter, op. cit., p. 192 note.
page 387 note 6 Kidd, , Documents, pp. 599–600.Google Scholar
page 387 note 7 Doumergue, V, pp. 233ff.
page 387 note 8 ibid., p. 301. Inst. IV.iii.9 distinguishes two sorts of deacons, financial agents and welfare workers, the latter of which may include women.
page 388 note 1 Both Newman and Maurice had some personal experience of Calvinism; echoes of it can be traced in their writings, and this common background may help to explain the readiness of later Anglo-Catholics to adopt the ‘social gospel’.
page 388 note 2 Hunter, op. cit., pp. 159–60.
page 388 note 3 Quoted from O. Noordmans in Moltmann, Calvin-Studien, p. 64.
page 388 note 4 Inst. IV.xvii.43–44.
page 388 note 5 Lecerf, op. cit., pp. 46–48.
page 388 note 6 Inst. IV.x.27.
page 388 note 7 ‘The Lord allows us freedom in regard to outward rites, in order that we may not think His worship is confined to those things … however … He has restricted the freedom … in such a way that it is only from His Word that we can make up our minds about what is right’ (Comment, on I Cor. 14.40).
page 388 note 8 Inst. IV.x.30.
page 388 note 9 ibid., IV.x.27.
page 389 note 1 Comment, on I Cor. 11.2.
page 389 note 2 Letter to Bullinger, March 1551, Opera, XIV, pp. 74ff.
page 389 note 3 Opera, XV, pp. 79–80 and Lettres Françaises, I, pp. 420ff.
page 389 note 4 Letter of April 1552, Opera, XIV, pp. 312ff, and Zürich Letters I, pp. 21ff.
page 389 note 5 Opera, XVIII, p. 286.
page 389 note 6 Brown, Hume, John Knox (1895), p. 252.Google Scholar