Calvin and Geneva.

[IN the Historical Sketch of Switzerland, subjoined to Simond's lately published travels in that country, we met with some notices of Calvin, and the city in which he ruled with an almost absolute sway, which we thought might prove interesting to those of our readers who had not seen that work. The writer is evidently impartial, and very little, if at all influenced, in his estimate of Calvin's character, by any religious prepossessions of his own. He attempts nothing elaborate, but merely gives us some passing notices of that learned, gifted, ardent and persevering, though obstinate, arrogant, bigoted and relentless reformer. Our extracts follow.]

Early in life, Calvin had published a book much celebrated in its day, on Predestination and Divine Providence; the doctrine of which he maintained throughout his life, while acting in direct opposition to it-that is, asserting that men cannot possibly be otherwise than they were intended to be beforehand, and at the same time employing the severest means to force them to be otherwise. The magistrates of Berne would not pass any approbation or censure on this doctrine, but wisely forbade their clergy preaching on such high matters. Those of Geneva, abandoning the circumspection they had shown before, when they declared some abstruse questions respecting baptism to be better calculated to shake our faith than strengthen it, now lent to the doctrine of predestination the assistance of the law. They kept the physician Bolzec a long time confined for saying that ultimate evil was

not consistent with the existence of God, whose infinite goodness and omnipotence cannot be supposed to have doomed beforehand some men to everlasting torments, and some others to everlasting bliss. He would have been made to atone for his opinions with his life, if the other reformed churches in Switzerland, all inclined to his way of thinking, had not interposed in his favour. A poor dyer of Geneva, who dabbled in theology, was made to beg pardon on his knees before the consistory for saying, that Calvin might, after all, be in an error, and should not be ashamed to acknowledge it, as St. Augustine had done before. Others were censured publicly, or underwent slight punishments, for differing on this point with the sovereign pontiff of the reformed church; and finally a man of melancholy celebrity was sent to the stake, as we are going to see.

Michael Servetus, a Spaniard, just escaped from the prison of Vienne, in France, into which he had been thrown on account of his book against the Trinity, entitled Christianismi Restitutio, was exploring his way to an asylum offered him in the kingdom of Naples, when unfortunately, in passing through Geneva, he was recognized, thrown into prison, and subjected to interrogatories by the council of Geneva upon thirtynine heads of accusation framed against him by Calvin. While at Vienne, Servetus had carried on an angry correspondence with the latter, of whose rancour he now bitterly complained from his prison, where he was subjected to the treatment of the vilest malefactor, and even refused an advocate to plead his cause, on the ground of unworthiness, although his conduct, if not his opinions, had always been irreproachable. It is

true he answered the accusations of Calvin with vielent invectives, and may, as Buchat says, have liken. ed him to Simon the magician, and have given him the lie even forty times; but such were the manners of the age, of which he partook in common with Calvin, who had loaded him with abuse, and suffered him to undergo a sentence he might have prevented. It was in vain that Servetus remonstrated with his prosecutors on the enormity of subjecting him to trial for a difference of opinion in matters of religion-a practice altogether unknown to the apostles, and the primitive church. Being condemned to be burnt alive, he maintained the same opinions to the last; and although very much afraid of death, he met it with unalterable constancy.

This state of things did not prevent Geneva, already considered as the metropolis of the reformation, from being the asylum where men of eminence, either by their learning or their rank, and persecuted in other countries, repaired for safety, as well as instruction; for the excesses of an intolerant zeal were carried still further elsewhere, and in the very neighbourhood of Geneva. The register of the council under date 14th October, 1557, states that a multitude of foreigners had been admitted as inhabitants of Geneva that morning; enumerating two hundred French, fifty English, twenty-five Italians, four Spaniards; and on the 30th of May, 1560, another entry in that register states that all the English who had resided at Geneva during the persecutions in their own country, had come in a body before the council to return thanks, presenting a book, in which all their names were inscribed. The celebrated John Knox was probably one of that number, for he resided at Geneva during the bloody tyran

ny of Mary; and although he returned home at her death, he came again, and was received a burgher in 1558. It was probably in 1560 that he took a final leave of Geneva, and went to Scotland, where he established the church discipline of Calvin. The name of Galiaci Caraccioli, marquis of Vico, occurs among other illustrious Italians; the learned Massimiliano Martinanzo preached to his countrymen in their own language. Some of them attempted, like Servetus, to question the dogma of the Trinity, but yielded when they were required to subscribe the general confession of faith, or leave the town. One of the Italian refugees, who escaped at Geneva by a feigned acquiescence, relapsing again at Berne into his former heresy about the Trinity, was beheaded there.

The college of Geneva, its organization and discipline, are due to Calvin, who divided with Theodore de Beze the professorship of theology, the main object of the establishment; to which the study of the dead languages was merely subservient. Philosophy, such as it was in those days, was also taught. Notwithstanding the many defects of this establishment, Geneva, and we may say Europe, was indebted to it for an extraordinary number of distinguished men, who there received their first education.

Calvin did not long survive to enjoy his reputation, but being naturally of a weak constitution, and worn out by incessant labour, died prematurely at the age of fiftyfive, on the 15th of May, 1564. With vast powers of mind, and a prodigious memory, indefatigable, temperate, and disinterested, he obscured these rare qualities by a temper habitually severe and intolerant. Yet in forming our judgment of men, we must consider the

age they lived in, and it is probable that modes of reformation more strictly evangelical might have proved wholly unavailing with the cotemporaries of Calvin. He came to Geneva a stranger, exposed to the hatred of parties, and by the mere force of character established an undisputed influence. Not less a legislator than a theologian, the people whom he had found corrupt and barbarous, without morals, religion, or public spirit, came out of his hands austere and simple, religious and patriotic, or at least received from him the impulse which made them so in the end.

The vain subtilties, scholastic affectation, and pedantry of the age, may be observed in the writings of Calvin, and the other reformers; but these defects are far more conspicuous in those who came before them, and likewise after, that is, among the controvertists of the seventeenth century.

Calvin having declared war against the scholastic theology, was bound to avoid its characteristic defects. Melanchthon, Beza, Luther, Zuinglius, and some others, were not only men of great learning and transcendent talents, but of a very cultivated taste. Those among them who wrote in the vulgar language for the sake of being generally understood, had to fit the rude and inartificial instrument to a new purpose, in adapting it to didactic subjects, as well as to eloquence and even poetry; while the Latin of those who wrote in the learned language of that time, Erasmus, Melanchthon, Bullinger, &c. formed on the best models of antiquity, is perfectly pure and elegant. Theodore de Beze, particularly, wrote Latin with surprising sweetness and harmony. Nothing can exceed the vigour and dignity of Calvin in his dedication to Francis I. of his Insti.