THE TRIAL IS INTERRUPTED THROUGH DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CALVIN AND THE COUNCIL.

The Churches were to be appealed to, then, and Calvin applied himself immediately to make the best he could of the case as it stood. With the diligence that distinguished him, we need not doubt of his having been soon ready with the Articles upon which the trial of Servetus may be said to have entered on its third, if it were not its fourth and definite, phase.92 But a notable interval elapsed before we find the Council giving any heed to the new Articles of Indictment, or taking steps to have them despatched to the Cantons. The Council had business of another kind to engage them, with Calvin and his friends as their opponents on grounds of policy, instead of their instigators and guides in a trial for heresy. It was at this precise time that the struggle to which we have alluded in our review of the political situation took place between Calvin and the Council on the right exercised by the Consistory to excommunicate or deprive of Church privileges those who were known to have infringed one or another of its arbitrary religious, moral, or sumptuary regulations. Philibert Berthelier, having offended in this direction, had fallen under the ban of the Consistory some time before; but, having now appealed to the Council for redress against what he held to be an unjust award, his party were powerful enough not only to obtain a decision in his favour, but to have the Consistory deprived of the right to excommunicate at all.

This was felt, of course, as a heavy blow by Calvin and his supporters. Berthelier, formally absolved of the Consistorial interdict, was declared at liberty to present himself at an approaching celebration of the Solemn Supper. And he would probably have shown himself there, and an unseemly scene would have ensued; for Calvin was as resolute to have his authority respected within the walls of St. Peter’s Church, as the Council could have been to have theirs upheld within the precincts of the City. Berthelier himself, however, being advised that though he was fully entitled to present himself at the Table, it would perhaps be as well did he abstain from doing so for the present, took the hint and stayed away. But several members of the Libertine party—each of whom we must presume, in Calvin’s estimation, might have subscribed himself as

uninformed of this, and expecting countenance from the presence of their leader, offered themselves among the other communicants. Being all well known to Calvin, however, they were resolutely warned off by him. Covering the typical Bread and Cup with his outspread hands, he declared that they should sooner hack them off than bring him to minister to those he looked on as notorious scoffers at religion and its most solemn rites. Here the minister was in his place and within the pale of his office; so that they who came to browbeat and humble him had to retreat from his presence with shame to themselves and damage to their party, whilst he stood erect in the fearless discharge of his duty, and rose higher than ever in the estimation of all lovers of law and order, even of the stringent kind that prevailed in the theo-autocratic city of Geneva.

The letter which Calvin wrote, at this stormy time, to his friend Viret, of Lausanne, is too interesting and characteristic not to have a place here:

... I had thought to have been silent about our affairs of Geneva, fearing that I should only add needlessly to your other anxieties; but lest rumours reaching you from other quarters should distress you more than knowledge of the truth, I think it best to tell you exactly what has happened.

When Ph. Berthelier was forbidden to present himself at the Lord’s Table some year and half ago, he then appealed to the Council against the decree of the Consistory. We were called into court to hold the scoundrel (nebulo) in check; and when the case had been heard, the Senate declared that he had been properly excommunicated. From that time until now he has been quiet; whether in despair of mending matters or through indifference, I know not. But now, and before the Syndicate of Perrin expires, he would have himself reinstated by the Council in spite of the Consistory. I was again summoned, and in copious words I showed that this could with no propriety be done; that it would not be lawful, indeed, to counteract in any such way the discipline of the Church. When my back was turned, however, the Consistory not having been further heard or represented, permission was given him by the Council to present himself at the Table. This being told to me, I took care immediately to have the Syndic summon a special meeting of the Council, at which I entered with such fulness into the question, as to leave nothing which in my opinion could be said further to make them change their mind—now vehement, now more persuasive, I strove to bring them to a right way of thinking. I even declared that I would sooner die, opposing their decree, than profane the Sacred Table of the Lord.... The Senate nevertheless replied that they saw no reason to depart from the judgment already given.

From this you will perceive that I should have nothing for it but to quit my ministry, did I suffer the authority of the Consistory to be trodden under foot, and consented to administer the Supper of Christ to the openly contumacious who declare that we Pastors of the Church are nothing to them. But, as I say, I would sooner die a hundred deaths than subject Christ to so foul a mockery. What I said yesterday at two meetings, I need not recapitulate. But the wicked and lost among us will now have all they desire. In so far as I am concerned, it is the Church’s calamity that distresses me. If God, however, give such licence to Satan that I am to be thwarted in my ministry by violent decrees, I am as good as dead in my office. But he who inflicts the wound will find the salve; and truly, when I see how the wicked have gone on all these years with such impunity, the Lord perhaps prepares some judgment for me, in respect of my unworthiness. Whatever befals, it is nevertheless for us to submit to his will. Farewell, and may God be with you always, guide you and protect you! Pray incessantly that He consider this our miserable Church!

Geneva, The day before the nones (4th) of September, 1553.