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What are we to think of Calvin?
(Translated from Le Bachais, No. 35, November-December 1999, the publication of the Priory St. Pierr ^ | December, 1999 | Rev . Fr. Philippe Marcille

Posted on 06/26/2010 10:46:26 AM PDT by Natural Law

What are we to think of Calvin?

Rev . Fr. Philippe Marcille

The influence of John Calvin (1509-1564) has been immense, perhaps even more so than that of Luther. Certainly, without the bellowing revolutionary Luther, Calvin would not have been able to do anything; yet without Calvin, the revolt would not have had the political impact that it did in France and especially the United States.

Origins

He was born in Picardy, France, in 1509. His parents were well-to-do people. A very gifted student, he received a benefice from the Church and continued his studies at Paris. He was not well liked by his classmates: they nicknamed him "the accusative." He readily scolded others and tattled on them, while remaining aloof and bitter. But when in public, he would lose all his reserve and stand out in debates. An anti-Lutheran, defender of authority, he approved the legal actions brought against the most strident Lutherans.

The Personal Crisis

In 1532, at the College of France, he was still Catholic. By the end of 1533, he had suddenly turned Protestant, sold his benefices, and begun the life of an itinerant preacher. What happened?

Protestant hagiography has sought to explain it by edifying conversations in his room that would have taken place between Calvin and a Protestant cousin. Recent studies, however, have shown that the two were hundreds of miles apart at the time. A key, though, was left in part by Calvin himself:

Each and every time I entered within myself, a horror so great came over me that neither purifications nor satisfactions could have effaced it. The more I considered myself the more my conscience was pricked with sharp darts, so much so that only one consolation remained, and that was to deceive myself by forgetting about myself ....bewildered by the misery into which I had fallen, and even more so by the knowledge of how close I was to eternal death (Letter to Sadolet).

It is only fair to wonder what could be the nature of such a burning self-reproach. There is one answer, based upon serious evidence, one that has always been passionately denied by the Protestants. In 1551, a Catholic controversialist revealed that the archives of the city of Noyon, Calvin's birth place, contain the record of a condemnation against Calvin, at age 18, for sodomy. He had by then already received the tonsure. His parents obtained clemency from the bishop, so that instead of being condemned to death as the law demanded, he was branded as a sign of infamy. The Catholic controversialist presented the evidence signed by all the eminent personages of the city. The English scholar Stapleton went there to examine the archives during Calvin's lifetime, and vouched for the fact. The contemporary German Lutherans spoke of it as an established fact (Schlusselburg, Théologie calvinienne).

At twenty-four, Calvin was at a crossroads. He had to choose between confession or Lutheranism. He chose: "Only believe, and you are as sure of your own eternal salvation as of the Redemption of Christ. Only believe, and despite all the crimes, not only will you remain in the grace of God, in justice, but you will always remain in grace and you will never be able to lose it" (Bossuet's summary of his doctrine in "Variations").

The Heresiarch

His career began. He wandered to Strasbourg, Basel, Ferrara, and finally settled at Geneva in 1536 as preacher. There he was to show his full worth, not only as a preacher, but also as a political virtuoso. In five years, he was able to solidify his authority over the Consistory the Council of the Ancients, a disciplinary tribunal that passed sentence on all public sinners]; first as leader of the Protestants in exterminating the Catholics (half the city fled, ruined, all their property and possessions confiscated), then as president of the Council that voted on the right interpretation of the Bible, and finally as chief of the tribunal and the army of informers and police in charge of morality and doctrine.

The Tyrant

He began obsessively multiplying laws of public morality. Death was the penalty for high treason against religion as well as for high treason against the city, and for the son who would strike or curse his father, and for the adulterer and the heretic. Children were whipped or hanged for calling their mother a devil. A mason wearily exclaimed "to the devil with the work and the master," and was denounced and condemned to three days in prison. Magicians and sorcerers were hunted down. They always confessed, of course. According to the city register, in 60 years, some 150 were burnt at the stake.

The years went by; Calvin's obsession gripped the Genevans. The number of dishes that could be served at table was regulated, as well as the shape of shoes, and the ladies' hair styles. In the registers are to be found condemnations such as these: "Three journey-men tanners were sentenced to three days on bread and water in prison for having eaten at lunch three dozen pates, which is a great immorality."

That was in 1558. Drunkenness, taverns and card games were punished by fines. The city's coffers filled up and served to pay new informers. For there were ears everywhere in the republic of evangelical liberty, and the failure to inform was itself a misdemeanor. "They are to be stationed in every quarter of the city, so that nothing can escape their eyes," wrote Calvin. Sermons were given on Thursdays and Sundays. Attendance was obligatory under pain of fine or flogging. Not even children were excused. The spies would verify that the streets and houses were empty. Every year, the controllers of orthodoxy went house-to-house to have everyone sign the profession of faith voted that year. The last Catholics disappeared by death or exile. None spoke of changing religion, for Calvin had had a law voted punishing by death anyone who would dare question the reforms of the "servant of Geneva."

Calvin's City

Outwardly Geneva become an exemplary city where an iron morality reigned. Inwardly it was rotten. The population had been augmented by refugees of all sorts: Protestants chased from France, but also delinquents seeking impunity. Calvin's law allowed divorce: people hastened to Geneva from Savoy and the province of Lyons to get remarried. The Protestant Genevan Galiffe, a genealogist, concluded from his studies that the Geneva of Calvin's time was the gutter of Europe. And Calvin knew it:

Out of ten evangelists, you will scarcely find a one who became evangelical for any other reason than to be able to abandon himself more freely to drinking and dissolute living.

Calvin humbly took the title of "servant of Geneva," but God, he held, spoke by his mouth. "Since God has deigned to make known to me what is good and what is evil, I must rule myself by this measure..." And everyone else, too! One morning the city awoke to find gallows had been erected in all the public squares, to which a placard was attached: "For whomever shall speak ill of Mr. Calvin." A letter from the dictator sums up his attitude: "It is necessary to rid the land of these damned cads who exhort the people to resist us, blacken our conduct ...such monsters must be stamped out."

Absolute Power

Calvin's life was not snow white: there are stories of seized inheritances, "spontaneous gifts" made to the great man by merchants, considerable sums sent from the queen of Navarre or the duchess of Ferrara or from other well-off foreigners destined for the poor of the city, but which disappeared into the poor pockets of the great man; marriages arranged for members of his family by threatening rich refugees with expulsion.

Lampoons were circulated: woe to whomever the evangelical police seized in possession of one of them. Some escaped from torture or death by fleeing in time. Calvin then had their wives banished and their goods confiscated. For security's sake, he had the death penalty voted for whomever would even speak of recalling the exiles from their banishment.

Daniel Berthelier, master of the Mint of Geneva, had learned at Noyon the truth about Calvin's past, and had kept written evidence at his house. He was discovered, horribly tortured, and finally beheaded.

It was the execution of Servetus that consolidated the dictator's power. Calvin had cleverly had his adversary's book sent to the hive of Protestant popes, all of whom, including Melancthon, congratulated him on instigating the condemnation of this horrible heretic. Calvin immediately exploited this fleeting prestige to have appointed as electors a multitude of the men who had taken refuge in Geneva, for reasons which were not always based on religion, whom he called "the confessors of the faith." He soon controlled an absolute majority on the Consistory. He then had his last adversaries hunted down, exiled, or educated. It was 1554: before him were ten years in which to exercise absolute power.

There was no more resistance. Even the most powerful citizens could be forced to walk bare-footed around the city, clothed in a shirt, a candle in- hand, crying out "Mercy to God," the ordeal ending by a public confession made kneeling before the Consistory.

When not consulting the spies' reports, Calvin wrote his own book of revelation entitled Institutes of the Christian Religion. He worked on it incessantly, rearranging it, augmenting and re-editing, until it reached a thousand quarto pages. Woe to the critics, whose criticism would elicit from the author a rain of invectives. His ire was as likely to inveigh against Protestants as Catholics. Of Lutherans he was provoked to say: "They are quick tempered, furious, fickle, inconstant, liars, full of canine impudence and diabolical pride."

The quality of Calvin's cold hatred was terrible indeed. It is manifested especially in the affair of Michael Servetus. This learned doctor, a closet Protestant, amused himself by picking out all the blunders and errors that he could find in Calvin's pride and joy, The Institutes. He then sent the book with his own annotations to Calvin. That was in 1546. Calvin clenched his teeth: "If he comes hither and I have any authority, I will never let him quit this place alive" (Letter to Viret, a preacher of Lausanne). He awaited the moment of vengeance for seven years. In 1553, Servetus published anonymously an anti-trinitarian treatise. Calvin, who knew all the publishing channels of Protestant books, was able to discover the author's identity. He denounced him, furnishing proof to the Inquisition, which condemned Servetus, and then helped to obtain the mitigation of his punishment in light of all the good he had done as a physician. The unfortunate Servetus fled to Geneva, where he was arrested on sight. He was made to rot in prison two months. He pleaded to be allowed to have clean clothes and linen, but Calvin opposed the request. He was condemned to be burned alive. Calvin himself arranged the pyre: the pile of faggots was disposed in a circle around the stake so as to make the condemned man be burnt slowly. Calvin remained for two hours at his window listening to the man's screams. He received the approbation of the Protestant hive.

After 1559, the spleen that he had vented on his enemies seemed to be concentrated in his own entrails: stomach aches, intestinal pains, nephritic colic, bloody coughing racked him. His successor Theodore Beza confined him to his room and maintained the legend of the great man. But he confided that his master was becoming daily more imperious and tyrannic. He had unforeseeable fits of anger. Nothing satisfied him. He scolded; he threatened; he inveighed against all the pastors. He made the members of the Consistory confess publicly before him.

He died on the 27th of May 1564 after, it seems, thanking God for his evangelical mission. Was he a prophet, as the Protestants think? Maybe, in the final analysis, the prophet of religious democracy, the Antichrist's democracy. As he lay dying, though, he never had upon his lips the final cry that graced the lips of his dying victim, Michael Servetus: "Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me."

(Translated from Le Bachais, No. 35, November-December 1999, the publication of the Priory St. Pierre Julien Eymard, France).


TOPICS: Apologetics; Ecumenism; History
KEYWORDS: anticatholic; blasphemy; calvin; calvinism; catholic; freformed; heretics; protestant; protestantism; reformation
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To: Mr Rogers; Dutchboy88

I am in agreement with the ideas of that website, as far as I’ve read.

I find the concept of God, a loving, true God, choosing my destiny and then punishing me for that choice abominable and unChristian.

If you disagree you’ll find I’m not a fertile pasture for this belief of Calvin’s - that is I’m not looking for an argument, nor am I interested in debating the “merits” of predestination.


201 posted on 06/28/2010 1:39:08 PM PDT by 1010RD (First Do No Harm)
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To: 1010RD
"Who had this knowledge specifically? I am glad for Calvin's work and scholarship, too, but who had this knowledge after the Apostles died or were martyred."

If I read your question correctly, I think you are actually asking something else quite different from the question posed. I think, you are asking, "Who might we read about who was notable and published books now in existence who had this knowledge?" Right?

Otherwise, Tom the tailor, Dave the sheepherder, Steve the mason.

202 posted on 06/28/2010 2:08:16 PM PDT by Dutchboy88
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To: N3WBI3

With respect to conscience neither is particularly irrational.

Throughout the Bible God consistently speaks by prophets when he is speaking in reference to the Church as a whole. Prophets oftentimes have specific messages meant for individuals (Saul) or communities (Ninevah). That is well established. It would be unusual if he did not speak through a prophet, no?

Samuel taught the wickedness of kings and urged the people to continue in God’s way with prophets and judges. The people chose kings and God was proved right again.


203 posted on 06/28/2010 2:12:29 PM PDT by 1010RD (First Do No Harm)
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To: Dutchboy88

So you are surmising that the knowledge existed and needed to be rediscovered?

Are there Church Fathers who wrote the truth or do we have shards or scraps post-Apostolic age writings that were suppressed?

Or is the truth an esoteric knowledge passed along from commoner to commoner?


204 posted on 06/28/2010 2:29:36 PM PDT by 1010RD (First Do No Harm)
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To: 1010RD

Having a job to attend to will require that I postpone a compilation of folks that held doctrines more closely aligned with a reformed position than that of the RCC.

More tomorrow or the next day.

But, to answer your first question, the knowledge has never been fully extinguished, in spite of the efforts by the RCC to cover over the truth with its demonic doctrines. Rediscovering it is therefore an exaggeration. Perhaps bringing it back into popular acceptance is more accurate.


205 posted on 06/28/2010 2:43:09 PM PDT by Dutchboy88
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To: RegulatorCountry

Funny how so much of that escapes their attention.


206 posted on 06/28/2010 3:31:08 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: RegulatorCountry; boatbums

So, let me see if I can follow this. Somehow, the popes get in office, without any clear direction in Scripture or from Peter on exactly how that is supposed to be done.

And once he;s in office, there’s this papal infallibility thing that *protects* him.

What I can’t figure is what happens with one pope decides one thing and another pope rescinds it, then who’s right?


207 posted on 06/28/2010 3:34:15 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Natural Law; RnMomof7

Prove it true.

You made the assertion, it’s up to you to prove that the child was not his.

You are violating the very guidelines that scientists claim, that he making the assertion must provide evidence to back it up.

Posting an assertion that cannot be proved and claiming that it must be believed unless disproved is the exact same intellectually dishonest technique that scientists use in trying to promote their pet theories.

But regardless, whether in science or in a court, unfounded and unsupported assertions are not held to be valid without corroborating evidence. We are not obligated to believe any statement made without supporting evidence. What is it and where is it?

Innocent until proved guilty, remember?

Or shall we consider every priest simply accused of molesting children guilty until someone proves that they’re not?


208 posted on 06/28/2010 3:50:10 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom
"You made the assertion, it’s up to you to prove that the child was not his."

Its obvious you didn't read my posting anymore carefully than you read Scripture. I said that without DNA proof I wouldn't conclude one way or the other. You see, My mind ISN'T made up BEFORE I see the data.

209 posted on 06/28/2010 3:53:56 PM PDT by Natural Law (Catholiphobia is a mental illness.)
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To: metmom
"Or shall we consider every priest simply accused of molesting children guilty until someone proves that they’re not?"

Don't try to tell me that that isn't a position submitted and reinforced by anti-Catholics daily on these threads. You are often wrong, but you are not a liar.

210 posted on 06/28/2010 3:57:04 PM PDT by Natural Law (Catholiphobia is a mental illness.)
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To: aruanan; RnMomof7; boatbums; RegulatorCountry
Hey, he was just following his own version of WWJD. /sarc

Just like the popes, eh?

Or maybe the priests we've read about lately who've admitted to molesting little boys?

It just amazes me that in light of Catholic church history, the lengths Catholics will go to to defame a man when their own priests and popes are guilty of far worse for far longer to a far greater degree.

211 posted on 06/28/2010 4:04:55 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Natural Law

You sure could have fooled anyone reading this thread.


212 posted on 06/28/2010 4:13:57 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom; RnMomof7; boatbums; RegulatorCountry
It just amazes me that in light of Catholic church history, the lengths Catholics will go to to defame a man when their own priests and popes are guilty of far worse for far longer to a far greater degree.

You're making a basic mistake in logic. Just because a lot of other people do bad things or REAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLY bad things, it doesn't follow that Calvin didn't do bad things. And just because there are people who call themselves Calvinists and believe in his peculiar neo-Muslim theology (where God's will supersedes his other qualities or characteristics), it doesn't follow that a good many of them aren't genuine Christians who do much good for both believers and non-believers alike.
213 posted on 06/28/2010 4:16:34 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: metmom
"You sure could have fooled anyone reading this thread."

Without the ability to fool or be fooled there would be no Calvinism would there?

214 posted on 06/28/2010 4:22:26 PM PDT by Natural Law (Catholiphobia is a mental illness.)
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To: wagglebee
So, were Catholics to blame for the Salem witch trials and subsequent executions?

No, the people did it were responsible, as were those in a position of authority who approved such an action. I thought this had been settled upthread. The problem I have with threads such as this is the odd amnesia certain parties develop when wishing to condemn Protestants for behaviors long established in the church from which they separated, behaviors that continued concurrently with the Protestant Reformation and were particularly prevalent in the so-called "counter-Reformation." Failing to acknowledge this due to some strange desire to depict the "other" as uniquely to blame is not honest.

Keep in mind that we are talking about an event that took place nearly two centuries after the Reformation. It took place in a place that was nearly entirely Calvinist and it is doubtful that the average person in Salem had ever even met a Catholic.

So, do you suppose that Cotton Mather or Increase Mather came up with burning at the stake for witches by their own little lonesome? You know they didn't. Wasn't there some fancy Latin-titled book published by the Catholic Church dealing with the specifics of witch burnings?

Again, those responsible for the action were responsible, as were their leaders. I acknowledge this, but Catholics have difficulty acknowledging this.

Why is that, do you suppose? Is it somehow disobedient to acknowledge the errors of your church? I guess it's a difficulty that I don't have because I don't "follow" any Puritan hierarchy. They were professing Christians who fell into error due to historical tradition. It happens. Traditions are sometimes wrong, wouldn't you agree?

215 posted on 06/28/2010 5:29:15 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: aruanan; RnMomof7; RegulatorCountry; boatbums

I’m not making the mistake in logic that you think.

I’m not denying that Calvin could have done some bad things, although I’m not familiar enough with his history to know what they are.

My point if the inconsistency in certain parties in condemning him for certain alleged actions when they adhere to a denomination whose history is rife with their own bad things.

As RC has pointed out, burning at the stake was not a new Calvinistic idea. It had a long history by the church whose adherents love to finger point and condemn it.

And if you read history, some of the burnings which some like to credit to Calvin;s account were not his doing. He opposed at least one that he was alleged to have done, and the burnings were not his decision. Catholics love to portray him as the absolute dictator of Geneva, who was in the position of making the sole decisions of life and death for these people and a careful reading of history shows that these people went to trial and that there were others involved in the decisions to execute them and burn them, a tradition established by the RCC.

Catholics are hardly in a position to point fingers and cast stones about any of the behavior they condemn Calvin for in light of their own church history.


216 posted on 06/28/2010 5:48:58 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: aruanan

We are all sinners saved by grace


217 posted on 06/28/2010 6:47:14 PM PDT by RnMomof7
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To: RnMomof7
We are all sinners saved by grace

This is true. And then people start defining "all," "sinners," "saved," and "grace" in contradictory manners and the show begins.
218 posted on 06/28/2010 7:48:19 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: Natural Law; RnMomof7; Dutchboy88; boatbums; TSgt; the_conscience; Gamecock; Frumanchu; ...
Calvinists often viewed laughter, happiness, and pleasure as suspect and undesirable...The theocracy Calvin established in sixteenth-century Geneva, Switzerland (not democracy or republic as some have foolishly or disingenuously suggested)

lol. Your description of Geneva is ludicrous but typical of anti-Protestant bigots who know nothing of history other than what their biased catechism teaches them. Geneva was governed by an elected representative government of two councils, a larger council like our House of Representatives and and smaller house, like our Senate. (I'm repeating your history lesson hoping it sinks in this time.)

Proclaiming "the chief duty of man is to glorify God," Calvin...

Pity that is not what Rome considers to be the chief duty of man. Rome would be a lot less corrupt if it understood that truth.

Regarding Calvin's Geneva...

JOHN CALVIN
FROM SECOND REFORM IN GENEVA TO DEATH (1541-1564)

INTRODUCTION

1. From 1536 to 1538 Calvin had great authority in Geneva. This was his first attempt at reform, but he pushed the reform too quickly, for the city was not ready for any kind of stern discipline. The city council removed Calvin and Farel from Geneva and Calvin went to Strassburg for three years. This was undoubtedly a great time of discouragement for Calvin.

2. In Calvin's absence, matters deteriorated sadly in Geneva. Some of its citizens came to realize that he had been right in seeking a church in which Christian law would rule. They saw, as he did, that infidelity was the root cause of their troubles. After various political conflicts, and when their freedom seemed in danger, the people of Geneva implored Calvin to return. On September 13, 1531, amid great rejoicing and enthusiastic ovation, Calvin entered Geneva a second time. In this ordeal, God worked a tragedy into a blessing, creating a situation in which the people of Geneva welcomed Calvin and his reform.

CALVIN'S SECOND REFORM (1541-1564)

1. It is easy to see the wonderful providence of God in bringing John Calvin back to Geneva. This free and independent city with its democratic institutions was at that time, of all the places in the world, the most admirably fitted to be the scene of the great reformatory labors of Calvin.

2. Upon his return to Geneva, Calvin drew up a Church Order, a set of rules for governing of the church. It was based upon the teaching of Scripture that Christ has ordained four offices in the church: pastors, teachers or professors, elders, and deacons. The cornerstone of Calvin's form of church government was the office of elder. Pastors were to preach and to exhort the people. Elders were men of unusual stamina and spiritual insight who supervised the people, and visited and assisted the pastors. Deacons were general servers. Through this type of government, based on the Bible, Calvin was able to instruct and discipline the people spiritually.

Calvin labored to set forth a theocracy that would be an example of Christian life and government, and also be a citadel of evangelical truth that would conquer the power of Rome in all other lands.

3. Calvin put great emphasis upon Christian education. He knew that the Reformation would only be effective as people knew and obeyed God's Word. He devised a catechetical system for the young which was carried all over Europe. Primary and elementary schools were set up to educate the people, so they could be better Christians. Calvin established the Academy at Geneva, the first Protestant University, where thousands of young men were trained for the ministry of the Word. From these efforts, the gospel and Presbyterianism spread all over Europe. John Knox, like thousands of others who came to sit as admiring students at Calvin’s feet, found there what he termed “the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on the earth since the days of the apostles.”

4. For the next twenty-four years, Calvin labored in Geneva to bring about an effective reform in that city of Switzerland and in all of Europe. Apart from The Institutes, Calvin also wrote many other works, including commentaries on most of the Old and New Testament books. Calvin was the greatest exegete and the prince of commentators of the Reformation. He had a thorough knowledge of Greek, Hebrew and Latin, and through the printed page he supplied the Protestants with ammunition to fight the Roman Church. One feels amazed at the extent of his work. Arminius, the originator of a theology opposed to that of Calvin's system, gave an unbiased opinion of Calvin's works, saying:

“Next to the study of the Scriptures, I exhort my pupils to pursue Calvin's commentaries, which I extol in loftier terms than Helmick himself; for I affirm that he excels beyond comparison in the interpretation of Scripture, and that his commentaries ought to be more highly valued than all that is handed down to us by the library of the fathers; so that I acknowledge him to have possessed above most others, as rather above all other men, what may be called an eminent gift of prophecy.”

5. Calvin was also responsible for putting much of the Bible into the French language so the people could read God's Word. Calvin's works had a further effect in giving form and permanence to the then unstable French language in much the same way that Luther's translation of the Bible molded the German language.

6. It was Calvin's theology and form of church government that triumphed in the Protestant Church of France, the Reformed Church of Germany, the Church of Scotland, the Reformed Church in Hungary, the Reformed Church in Holland and in Puritanism in Old and New England.

7. Calvin died in the year 1564 at the early age of 55. Beza, his close friend and successor, described his death as having come quietly in his sleep, and then added:

“Thus withdrew into heaven, at the same time with the setting sun, that noble brilliant luminary, which was the lamp of the Church. On the following day and night there was intense grief and lamentation in the whole city; for the Republic had lost its wisest citizen, the Church its faithful shepherd, and the Academy and incomparable teacher.” ...

The rest of the link is equally informative.

The funny thing about a Roman Catholic apologist trashing the "theocracy" of Calvin is that the Roman Catholic apologist not only bows down to a theocracy (in the form of the Vatican papacy) it believes that theocracy actually distributes salvation.

Pot/kettle/black.

Calvin rightly understood that neither a city, a government, a theocracy, a church nor a pope can confer salvation. That job belongs to the Holy Spirit alone by the work of Jesus Christ alone according to the will of God alone for the glory of God alone (which is our chief duty.)

219 posted on 06/28/2010 10:06:43 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: RegulatorCountry

For the record, I think it is deplorable to torture and execute people because of what they do or do not believe about God.

Nevertheless, that was the way heresy was dealt with in the Judeo-Christian world from the time of Moses until just a few centuries ago. This DOES NOT make it right, but it does put it in perspective. Just over a century ago Americans were executed for stealing cattle and though we would never do that today, that doesn’t mean that America was a bunch of barbarians in the 19th century. Punishment for crimes (and in the Christian world heresy was a crime until a few centuries ago) needs to be looked at in terms of what was the norm at that time, not what is the norm today.

The TRUTH is that it was horrible what Catholics and Protestants did to each other during the religious wars. I don’t think we will ever know which side had more blood on their hands (historical accounts of these wars are among the most biased works ever composed), the point is that there was far too much blood and BOTH sides were guilty.


220 posted on 06/29/2010 5:30:22 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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