The UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE for DECEMBER, 1792. 401 MEMOIRS of the LIFE and WRITINGS of JOHN CALVIN: With a fine Portrait of that celebrated Reformer. The Character and Conduct of this illuftrious Reformer will be ever interesting» not in the Annals of Theology merely, but in the Hiftory of the Progrefs of the Human Understanding from a State of Ignorance and Barbarifm to Knowledge and Civilization. A Mind, endued with the Acuteness to difcern; and In trepidity to difcard; the principal Errors of a corrupt Religion; yet still fo infatuated as to fully the Glory of a Name, in other refpects truly fplendid; by an Exertion of Spiritual Cruelty which he bad denied to the avowed Pretenders to Infallibility; muft exhibit a melancholy Inftance of the Inconfiftencies of Mankind: inculcating, however, this extenuating Abfervation, that the Errors and Crimes of many great Men, at that Period, were imputable, in a Manner, to the Age in which they lived; in which the various contending Parties were equally ignorant of the true Principles of Civil and Religious Liberty: inducing us, moreover, inftead of regarding our Ancestors with all the Severity of retrospective Cenfures to rejoice that an enlightened Period is at length arrived, from which the furies of Bigotry are faft retiring, and in which (notwithstanding fome occafional Appearances of polemical Acrimony, the Refuli, perhaps, of political Confiderations) Men are generally agreed, that a virtuous Life is more acceptable to the Deity than the most exalt Correctness in mere Opinion; and that whatever Pains and Penalties human Beings may inflict upon each other, for a Difference on Theological Points, He, the Univerfal Parent of All, will regard fuch alone as His Children, who, by Acts of Benevolence toward their Fellow Creatures, difplay the nobleft Influences of fincere Faith, unaffected Piety, and confiftent Virtue. JOHN OHN CALVIN, one of the celebrated Reformers of the Chriftian church from the fuperftition and errors of the church of Rome, was the fon of a cooper, in the city of Noyon, in that part of a late province of France, called the Ifle of France, which is now diftinguished by the appellation of the department of the Oife. He was born on the 10th of July, in the year 1509. He was inftructed in the rudiments of grammar, at Paris, by Mathurinus Corderius, author of the well-known Latin Colloquies; and he ftudied philofophy, under a Spanish profeffor, in the college of Montaigu. His father, who difcovered many marks of his early piety, (particularly in his frequent reprehenfions of the vices of his companions) intended him for the church, and obtained a prefentation for him, VOL. XEI. in 1521, to the chapel of Notre Dame de la Gefine, in the church of Noyon. In 1527, he was prefented to the rectory of Marteville, which he exchanged, in 1529, for that of Pont l'Eveque, near Noyon. His father, afterward, changed his original intention, and directed him to study the law. Our young divine, who had never been in priest's orders, and whofe only tie to the church, was his having received the tonfure, readily obeyed his father, and refigned his chapel and rectory in 1534. He had conceived a great diflike to popery, in confequence of a diligent study of the Holy Scriptures; and to this circumftance his father was indebted for an immediate acquiefcence in his wishes. He was fent to ftudy the law, firft at Orleans, and afterward at Bourges. He made a great pro 3 E grefs grefs in that fcience; and his private itudies, devoted to divinity, were equally productive of improvement. At Bourges, he applied alfo to the Greek tongue, under the direction of Profeffor Wolmar. cenfure the errors which pervade this work, we cannot but praise the purity and elegance of the ftyle, whether in Latin or in French. We discover an acute and penetrating mind, and an extenfive knowledge in the Scriptures and the Fathers; but these qualities were all tarnished by a want of difcri Calvin was not the real name of our reformer: it was Chauvin; but having published, at the age of twenty-mination in the choice of his opinions, four, a Commentary on the two books of Seneca on Clemency, he exhibited a curious specimen of youthful vanity, by latinizing his name into Calvinus; ftyling himself, in the title page of this his first work, Lucius Carvinus, Civis Romanus ;' and by the name of Calvin he was ever after known. On the death of his father, Calvin returned to Noyon, and, after a fhort flay there, went to Paris. Here he was foon known and diftinguished by fuch as had privately embraced the Reformation. A fpeech of Nicholas Cop, rector of the univerfity of Paris (of which Calvin furnished the materials) having given great offence to the Sorbonne and the parliament, occafioned a perfecution against the Proeftants and Calvin, who narrowly efcaped being taken in the college of Forteret, was compelled to retire to Angoulefie, where,' fays a Roman Catholic author, he taught Greek, and preached his errors *. Hence he went to Poitiers, Nerac, and again to Paris; but, finding his fituation there extremely dangerous, he retired to Bafil in Switzerland. It was in this city," fays the fame author, that he published, in Latin, his famous Inittutes of the Chriflian Religion. He wrote this work as an apology for the Reformed, condemned to the flames by Francis I. It is the abridgement of all his doctrine. It was the catechifm of all his difciples. He does not feem to differ much from the fentiments of Luther; but he goes far beyond him. The real prefence is the only point in which they do not agree. According to Calvin, the body of our Saviour is really and fubftantially in Heaven only. While we 6 by rafh decifions, and violent declamations. The principal errors to be noticed in this work, and in his treatife on the Lord's Supper, are, that free will was entirely destroyed by fin, and that God has created men to be the portion of devils; not be. caufe they may merit it by their crimes, but because it is his pleasure. Vows, thofe of baptifm excepted, he confiders as tyrannical. He would have no exterior worship, no invocation of the faints, no visible head of the church; neither bishops, priests, feftivals, croffes, benedictions, nor any of thofe facred ceremonies, which religion deems fo ufeful in the worship of God, and which philofophy acknowledges to be fo neceffary for men in this terreftrial ftate, in which they cannot rife to the adoration of the Supreme Being but by the intervention of the fenfes. He admits two facraments only, baptifm and the Lord's Supper. He renounces indulgences, purgatory, the mafs, &c.' This Roman Catholic's account of the errors of our great Reformer may make a Protestant fmile. It is, however, a ferious lefion to all feċts, not preiumptuously to arrogate orthodoxy as exclufively their own. In 1530, after having spent fome time in Italy and Switzerland, Calvin was prevailed upon to settle in Geneva, where he was chofen profeffor of divinity, and one of the minifters of the church. The next year, he made all the people declare, upon oath, their affent to a confeffion of faith, which contained a renunciation of popery; and as he found that this reformation in doctrine had not yet a fufficient influence on the morals of the people, nor banished * Nouveau Dictionnaire Hikorique, 1779. that that factious fpirit which had fet the principal families at variance, he declared, in concert with other minifters, that he could not celebrate the facrament, while they retained their animofities, and trampled on the difcipline of the church. Calvin, how ever, was not yet arrived at the height of his fpiritual domination in Geneva. Having declared that he could not conform to certain regulations, made by the Synod of Berne, refpecting the adminiftration of the Lord's Supper, the people, at the infigation of the Syndics of Geneva, confented to his expulfion in 1538. Retiring to Strafburgh, he established in that city a French church, of which he was the first minifter; and he was likewife appointed profeffor of divinity. During his refidence at Strafburgh, he gave many marks of his affection for the church at Geneva; as appears, parficularly, by the answer which he wrote, in 1539, to the beautiful but artful letter of cardinal Sadolet, bishop of Carpentras, inviting the people of Geneva to return into the bofom of the Romish church. Two years after, he was chofen to affift at the diet, which the emperor had appointed to be held at Worms, and at Ratisbon, in order to accommodate the differences in religion. He went to the diet, accompanied by Bucer, and had a conference with Melancthon. A revolution in the magistracy of Geneva having difplaced the Syndics who had been inftrumental in his expulfion, the people fo earneftly entreated him to return, that, at last, he confented, and arrived at Geneva September 1541, to the great fatisfaction both of the magiftrates and the people. Here,' fays the author we have already quoted, he was received as the Pope of the new church. Geneva became, from that inftant, the theatre of Calvinifm. He eftablished a fevere form of church difcipline, with a confiftorial jurifdiction. He inftituted colloquies, fynods, elders, deacons, and overfeers. He regulated the forms of prayer and the man ner of preaching, of celebrating the Lord's Supper, of baptifing, and the interment of the dead. A dangerous divine, but an excellent jurifconfult, he formed, in concurrence with the magiftrates, a body of civil and ecclefiaftical laws, which met with the approbation of the people then, and are ftill regarded as the fundamental code of the republic. He did more: he established a kind of inquifition, a confiftorial houfe with the right of cenfure and excommunication. This religion, which was thought to be more favourable to that liberty, which is effential to a republican government, had for its author a man, who was rigid to a degree of tyranny. Michael Servetus, a phyfician, having written fome letters to him on the mystery of the Trinity, Calvin made fuch ufe of them, that he caused him to be burnt alive; forgetting, or not regarding, what he himself had before written against the perfecutors of heretics. But different times, different fentiments. Perfecuted himfelf in France, he wrote againft intolerance: the fpiritual fovereign of Geneva, he infifted upon the neceffity of condemning thofe to the flames who were not of his opinion. Valentine Gentilis, another Arian, beginning to make fome noife, the patriarch of Geneva caufed him to be arrested, condemned him to make a recantation, and obliged him to take refuge in Lyons.' No confiftent Proteftant can read this account of the bigotry and cruelty of Calvin without horror. It has not only given (as appears by this extract) a great advantage to the Papifts, when a Proteftant reproaches them with the perfecuting fpirit of their religion, but it is a circumstance to which the Deifts have not forgotten to advert as a fubject of fatire and exultation. Voltaire, in his Commentary on Beccaria's Eflay on Crimes and Punishments, has thus exprefied himself: A Calvinist teacher, who, in certain provinces of France, preaches to his flock, if he be detected, is pur 3 E 2 nished nished with death; and thofe who have given him a fupper, or a bed, are fent to the gallies for life. In other countries, if a Jefuit be caught preaching, he is hanged. Is it to avenge God that this Jefuit and this Calvinift are put to death? Have both parties built upon this evangelical law- If he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican *?' But the evangelift does not order that this heathen and this publican fhould be banged. Or have they built on this paffage in Deuteronomy- If among you a prophet arife, and that which he hath faid come to pass; and he faith unto you, let us follow ftrange gods; and if thy brother, or thy fon, or thy wife, or the friend of thy heart, fay unto thee, come, let us follow ftrange gods; let them be ftraightways killed, ftrike them first, and all the people after thee +'-But neither this Jefuit nor this Calvinift faid unto you, come, let us follow ftrange gods. The counsellor Dubourg, the monk John Chauvin, named Calvin, the Spanish physician Servetus, the Calabrian Gentilis, all worshipped the fame God; and yet the prefident Minard caufed counsellor Dubourg to be burnt, and Dubourg's friends caufed Minard to be affaffinated t; John Calvin caufed the phyfician to be roafted, and had likewife the confolation to be a principal cause of bringing the Calabrian Gentilis to the block ||; and the fucceffors of John Calvin burnt Anthony §. Was it reason, M. Dubourg was an ecclefiaftical counsellor in the parliament of Paris, diftinguished for his attachment to the reformed religion. Having spoken with great energy in favour of the partizans of that doctrine, he was arrefted," fays the author of the Nouveau Dictionnaire, by the order of Henry II, profecuted as a heretic, degraded from the priesthood, and hanged and burnt at Paris, in 1559, at the age of thirtyeight. He was fufpected,' continues the fame writer, of being concerned in the affaffination of the prefident Minard, one of his judges: this murder accelerated his punishment and that of many other calvinifts. Thefe executions made new heretics, infiead of intimidating the old ones, and produced the confpiracy of Amboife, and the fucceeding civil wars. A good magiftrate, a faithful friend, an auftere priest, we muft confider the errors of Dubourg as the confequence merely of his inflexible character. He was incapable of faying what he did not think, and incapable of changing an opinion which he had once imbibed. Unfortunately for him, he fuffered himself to be led aftray by the Calvinists, who have ranked him among the number of their martyrs.' After Gentilis had read his recantation, he lived, for fome time, in peace, at Geneva; but perceiving his fituation to be difagreeable, on account of the hatred which the implacable Calvin bore toward him, he quitted that city. After having wandered in different countries, he ventured, after the death of Calvin, to vifit Berne; but he was there arrested, convicted of having attacked the mystery of the Trinity, and beheaded. He died,' fays the author of the Nouveau Dictionnaire, with impiety; boafting, that he was the firft martyr that had loft his life for the glory of the Father; ubereas, faid he, the apofttes, and the other martyrs, died only for the glory of the Son.' The hiftory of Anthony is one of the most fingular that the annals of frenzy have preferved. He was born at Brieu in Lorrain, of Catholic parents; and was educated by the Jefuits. He embraced the Proteftant religion at Metz. Having returned to Nancy, he was profecuted as a heretic, and, had he not been faved by a friend, would certainly have been hanged. He fled to Sedan, where, being taken for a Papift, he narrowly efcaped affaffination. Seeing by what strange fatality his life was not in fafe ty, either among Papifts ot Proteftants, he went to Venice, and turned Jew. The Jews did not circumcife him, for fear of offending the state; but he was no lefs internally a Jew. He then went to Geneva, where, concealing his faith, he became a preacher, and prefident of the college. The perpetual combat in his breaft between the religion of Calvin which he was obliged to preach, and that of Mofes, which |