John Cauvin (afterwards called Calvin) was born of humble parents, his father following the trade of a cooper, at Noyon in Picardy, July 10, 1509. He was intended in the first instance for the profession of the church, and two benefices were already set apart for him, when, at a very early age, from what motive is not exactly known, his destination was suddenly changed, and he was sent, first to Orleans and then to Bourges, to learn under distinguished teachers the science of jurisprudence. He is said to have made great proficiency in that study; but nevertheless, he found leisure to cultivate other talents, and made himself acquainted with Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac, during his residence at Bourges. His natural inclination seems ever to have bent him towards those pursuits to which his earliest attention was directed; and though he never attended the schools of theology, nor had at any time any public master in that science, yet his thoughts were never far away from it; and the time which he could spare from his professional labours was employed on subjects bearing more or less directly upon religion.

Thus it was, that he failed not to take part in the discussions, which arose in France during his early years, respecting the principles of the Reformation; and it may be, that his happy escape from theological tuition made him more disposed to embrace them. It is certain that his opposition to the Church of Rome became very soon notorious, and made him, young as he was, an object of jealousy to some of its powerful adherents. Even the moderate Erasmus viewed his aspiring talents and determined character with some undefined apprehension; and he is related (after a conversation with Calvin at Strasbourg) to have remarked to Bucer, who had presented him,—“I see in that young man the seeds of a dangerous pest, which will some day throw great disorder into the Church.” The weak and wavering character of Erasmus renders it difficult for us to understand what sort of disorder it was that he anticipated, or what exactly was the Church on which the apprehended mischief was to fall. In 1535 Calvin published his great work, the ‘Christian Institute,’ which was intended as a sort of confession of faith of the French reformers, in answer to the calumnies which confounded them with the frantic Anabaptists of Germany.

In 1536, finding that his person was no longer secure in France, Calvin determined to retire into Germany, and was compelled by accident to pass through Geneva. He found this city in a state of extreme confusion. The civil government was popular, and in those days tumultuous: the ecclesiastical had been entirely dissolved by the departure of the bishops and clergy on the triumph of the Reformation, and only such laws existed as the individual influence of the pastors was able to impose upon their several flocks. It was a tempting field for spiritual ambition, and Calvin was readily persuaded to enter into it. He decided to remain at Geneva, and forthwith opened a theological school.

In the very year following his arrival, he formed the design of introducing into his adopted country a regular system of ecclesiastical polity. He assembled the people; and, not without much opposition, prevailed on them at length to bind themselves by oath; first, that they would not again, on any consideration, ever submit to the dominion of Rome; secondly, that they would render obedience to a certain code of ecclesiastical laws, which he and his colleagues had drawn up for them. Some writers do not expressly mention that this second proposition was accepted by the people—if accepted, it was immediately violated: and as Calvin and his clerical coadjutors (who were only two in number) refused with firmness to administer the holy communion to such as rejected the condition, the people, not yet prepared to endure that bondage, banished the spiritual legislators from the city, in April, 1538.

Calvin retired to Strasbourg, where he renewed his intimacy with Bucer, and became more and more distinguished for his talents and learning. He was present at the Conferences of Worms and Ratisbon, where he gained additional reputation. He founded a French reformed church at Strasbourg, and obtained a theological chair in that city; at the same time, he continued in communication with Geneva, and in expressions of unabated affection for his former adherents. Meanwhile, the disorders which had prevailed in that city were in no manner alleviated by his exile, and a strong reaction gradually took place in his favour; insomuch, that, in the year 1541, there being a vacancy in the ministry, the senate and the assembly of the people proclaimed with equal vehemence their wish for the return of Calvin. “We will have Calvin, that good and learned man, Christ’s minister.” “This,” says Calvin, Epist. 24, “when I understood, I could not choose but praise God; nor was I able to judge otherwise, than that this was the Lord’s doing; and that it was marvellous in our eyes; and that the stone which the builders refused was now made the head of the corner.”

It was on September 13th that he returned from his exile in the pride of spiritual triumph; and he began, without any loss of time, while the feelings of all classes were yet warm in his favour, to establish that rigid form of ecclesiastical discipline which he may formerly have meditated, but which he did not fully propound till now. He proposed to institute a standing court (the Consistory), consisting of all the ministers of religion, who were to be perpetual members, and also of twice the same number of laymen to be chosen annually. To these he committed the charge of public morality, with power to determine all kinds of ecclesiastical causes; with authority to convene, control, and punish, even with excommunication, whomsoever they might think deserving. It was in vain that many advanced objections to this scheme: that they urged the despotic character of this court; the certainty too, that the perpetual judges, though fewer in number, would in fact predominate over a majority annually elected; and that Calvin, through his power over the clergy, would be master of the decisions of the whole tribunal. He persisted inflexibly; and since there now remained with the people of Geneva only the choice of receiving his laws or sending him once more into exile, they acquiesced reluctantly in the former determination. On the 20th of November, in the same year (1541), the Presbytery was established at Geneva.

Maimbourg, in his ‘History of Calvinism,’ has remarked that, from this time forward, Calvin became, not pontiff only, but also caliph, of Geneva; since the unbounded influence which he possessed in the Consistory extended to the council, and no important state-affair was transacted without his advice or approbation. At the same time, he enlarged the limits of his spiritual power, and made it felt in every quarter of Europe. In France most especially he was regarded personally as the head of the Reformed Church; he composed a liturgy for its use; and, secured from persecution by his residence and dignity, he gave laws, by his writings and his emissaries, to the scattered congregations of Reformers. The fruits of his unwearied industry were everywhere in their hands. His Institute, and his learned Expositions of Scripture, were substantial foundations of spiritual authority; and he became to his Church what the “Master of the Sentences,”—almost what Augustin himself—had been to the Church of Rome. And he did the Reformed Church an essential service by procuring the establishment of the academy, or university of Geneva; which was long the principal nursery of Presbyterian ministers, and which was the chief instrument of communicating to the citizens of its little state, that general mental culture and love of literature for which they have been remarkable.

The peculiarities of his religious opinions are known to all our readers; nor indeed, at any rate, have we space, in this brief outline of the Life of the Reformer, so to detail his tenets as to avoid the chance of misconception, either by his followers or his adversaries. We shall, therefore, proceed to another subject, respecting which there will be little difference, either as to the facts themselves, or the judgment to be formed of them—we mean that darkest act of his life, which being, as far as we learn, unatoned and unrepented, throws so deep a shadow over all the rest, as almost to make us question his sincerity in any good principle, or his capability of any righteous purpose.

A Spaniard, named Servetus, born at Villa Nueva, in Aragon, in the same year with Calvin, had been long engaged in a correspondence with the latter, which had finally degenerated into angry and abusive controversy. He had been educated as a physician, and had acquired great credit in his profession; when, in an evil hour, he entered the field of theological controversy, and professed without fear, and defended without modification, the Unitarian doctrine; adding to it some obscure and fanciful notions, peculiar, we believe, to his own imagination. He published very early in life ‘Seven Books concerning the Errors of the Trinity,’ and he continued in the same principles until the year 1553, when he put forth (at Vienne, in DauphinÉ), a work entitled ‘The Restoration of Christianity, &c.,’ in further confirmation of his views.

Now it is very true, that the propagation of these opinions by a professed Reformer was at that crisis a matter of great scandal, and perhaps even of some danger to the cause of the Reformation. It was felt as such by some of the leading Reformers. Zuinglius and Œcolampadius eagerly disclaimed the error of Servetus. “Our Church will be very ill spoken of,” said the latter in a letter to Bucer, “unless our divines make it their business to cry him down.” And had they been contented to proclaim their dissent from his doctrine, or to assail it by reasonable argument, they would have done no more than their duty to their own communion absolutely demanded of them.

But Calvin was not a man who would argue where he could command, or persuade where he could overthrow. Full of vehemence and bitterness, inflexible and relentless, he was prepared to adopt and to justify extreme measures, wheresoever they answered his purpose best. He was animated by the pride, intolerance, and cruelty of the Church of Rome, and he planted and nourished those evil passions in his little Consistory at Geneva.

Servetus, having escaped from confinement at Vienne, and flying for refuge to Naples, was driven by evil destiny, or his own infatuation, to Geneva. Here he strove to conceal himself, till he should be enabled to proceed on his journey; but he was quickly discovered by Calvin, and immediately cast into prison. This was in the summer of 1553. Presently followed the formality of his trial; and when we read the numerous articles of impeachment, and observe the language in which they are couched;—when we peruse the humble petitions which he addressed to the “Syndics and Council,” praying only that an advocate might be granted him, which prayer was haughtily refused;—when we perceive the misrepresentations of his doctrine, and the offensive terms of his condemnation, we appear to be carried back again to the Halls of Constance, and to be witnessing the fall of Huss and Jerome beneath their Roman Catholic oppressors. So true it is (as Grotius had sufficient reason to say), “that the Spirit of Antichrist did appear at Geneva as well as at Rome.”

But the magistrates of this Republic did not venture completely to execute the will of Calvin, without first consulting the other Protestant cities of Switzerland; namely, Zurich, Berne, BÂsle, and Schaffhausen. The answers returned by these all indicated very great anxiety for the extinction of the heresy, without however expressly demanding the blood of the heretic. The people of Zurich were the most violent: and the answer of their “Pastors, Readers, and Ministers,” which is praised and preserved by Calvin, is worthy of the communion from which they had so lately seceded. As soon as these communications reached Geneva, Servetus was immediately condemned to death (on the 26th of October, 1553), and was executed on the day following.

There is extant a letter written by Calvin to his friend and brother-minister, William Farel (dated the 26th), which announces that the fatal sentence had been passed, and would be executed on the morrow. It is only remarkable for the cold conciseness and heartless indifference of its expressions. Not a single word indicates any feeling of compassion or repugnance. And as the work of persecution was carried on without mercy, and completed without pity, so likewise was it recollected without remorse; and the Protestant Republican Minister of Christ continued for some years afterwards to insult with abusive epithets the memory of his victim.

Soon after the death of Servetus, Calvin published a vindication of his proceedings, in which he defended, without any compromise, the principle on which he had acted. It is entitled, “A Faithful Exposition and short Refutation of the Errors of Servetus, wherein it is shown that heretics should be restrained by the power of the sword.” His friend and biographer Beza also put forth a work “On the propriety of punishing Heretics by the Civil authority.” Thus Calvin not only indulged his own malevolent humour, but also sought to establish among the avowed principles of his own Church the duty of exterminating all who might happen to differ from it.

He lived eleven years longer; and expired at Geneva on the 27th of May, 1564; having maintained his authority to the end of his life, without acquiring any of the affection of those about him. Neither of these circumstances need surprise us, for it was his character to awe, to command, and to repel. Fearless, inflexible, morose, and imperious; he neither courted any one, nor yielded to any one, nor conciliated any one. Yet he was sensible of, and seemingly contrite for, his defects of temper; for he writes to Bucer: “I have not had harder contests with my vices, which are great and many, than with my impatience. I have not yet been able to subdue that savage brute.” His talents were extremely powerful, both for literature and for business. His profound and various learning acquired for him the general respect which it deserved. He was active and indefatigable; he slept little, and was remarkable for his abstemious habits. With a heart inflated and embittered with spiritual pride, he affected a perfect simplicity of manner; and professed, and may indeed have felt, a consummate contempt for the ordinary objects of human ambition. Besides this, he was far removed from the besetting vice of common minds, by which even noble qualities are so frequently degraded—avarice. He neither loved money for itself, nor grasped at it for its uses; and at his death, the whole amount of his property, including his library, did not exceed, at the lowest statement, one hundred and twenty-five crowns, at the highest, three hundred.

We may thus readily understand how it was that Calvin acquired, through the mere force of personal character thrown into favourable circumstances, power almost uncontrolled over a state of which he was not so much as a native, and considerable influence besides over the spiritual condition of Europe—power and influence, of which deep traces still exist both in the country which adopted him, and in others where he was only known by his writings and his doctrines. His doctrines still divide the Christian world; but that ecclesiastical principle, which called in the authority of the sword for their defence, has been long and indignantly disclaimed by all his followers.

The best clue to the real character of Calvin will be found in his letters. Many accounts of his life, as well as of his doctrines and writings, exist; but they are mostly influenced by party feeling. The earliest is that of his friend Beza; it is said however not to be strictly accurate even as to the facts of Calvin’s life before 1549, when the author became acquainted with him, and it is of course a panegyric.