J. H. Merle d'Aubigné

“ The Divine Spirit is the sap which infuses into barren souls the vivifying juices of heaven. The world has not seldom been like a desert in which all life seemed to be extinct; and yet, in those periods apparently so arid, subterranean currents were yielding sustenance here and there to solitary plants; [3] and at the hour fixed by Divine providence the living water has gushed forth abundantly to reanimate perishing humanity. Such was the case in the two greatest ages of history, that of the Gospel and that of the Reformation. ”

“ The Lord will cause our innocence to come forth like the morning-star, and our righteousness to shine like the sun.’ But he endeavors chiefly to console the believers of Geneva. ‘Be not cast down because it hath pleased the Lord to humble you for a time, for he lifts up the humble out of the dust and takes the poor from the dunghill. He gives the manna of joy to those who are in tears; he gives back light to them that sit in darkness, and he restores to life them that walk in the shadow of death. ”

“ Let us be free from all hatred and rancor. Let us love all men, pray for all men, do good to all men. Let us visit the poor and the afflicted, that is the true pilgrimage. Those little ones are the images of God, and it is to those images that we ought to resort, to them that we should carry food and candles.... My dear brethren, when you hear the bell ring, present yourselves here in God’s name, in peace and unity, without disturbance or murmuring.’ This was indeed a good and Christian address, and after hearing it the assembly dispersed. ”

“ At the time of Hamilton’s arrival on the Continent, the germ of the Reformation of Scotland already lay in his heart. His association with the doctors of Germany would prove the identity of this great spiritual movement, which everywhere was overthrowing the same abuses, and bringing anew to the surface the same truths. In which direction should the young Christian hero of Scotland now turn his footsteps? All his ambition was to go to Wittenberg, to hear Luther, Melanchthon, and the other reformers; but circumstances led him to go first to Marburg. ”

“ While I thought that I was living in a state of perfection, as they had given me to understand, I have been, on the contrary, only the servant of men, submitting myself to their traditions and commandments. Nothing is good but that which God commands. I have heard the truth. I see that I must hold fast to Jesus alone, must stand to his Word, and must have no other head, leader, or Saviour, but him who by his sacrifice has made us acceptable to the Father. I will henceforth live and die according to his Gospel. I ask forgiveness of God for all that I have done and said against his honor. ”

“ We ask for a peace with which the kingdom of Christ shall flourish; but you judge that all that is gained for Christ is lost to you. Pray the Lord, Sadoleto, that thou and thy people may once for all understand that there is no other bond in the church but Christ our Lord, who withdraws us from the dissipations of the world to place us in the society of his body, to the end that by his only Word and by his Spirit, we may be united in one heart and one thought! ”

“ Nothing was more likely to win feudal Scotland to the Reformation than the end, at once so holy and so cruel, of a member of a family so illustrious. Nobles, citizens, and the common people, nay, even priests and monks, were on the point of being aroused by this martyrdom. Hamilton, who by his ministry was reformer of Scotland, became still more so by his death. For God’s work, a life long and laborious would have been of less service than were his trial, condemnation, and execution, all accomplished on one day. ”

“ What armor will this poor Christian be able to put on, to save him from being overwhelmed? It is the Word of God. The soul deprived of the Word of God is delivered over to the devil, quite defenceless, to be slain. The first attempt of the enemy, therefore, will be to take from the combatant the sword of Jesus Christ. The pope, like the “illuminés,” arrogantly boasts of possessing the Spirit. ”

“ Such epochs, the most important in human history, are for that reason the worthiest to be studied. The new life which sprang up in the 16th century was everywhere the same, but nevertheless it bore a certain special character in each of the countries in which it appeared; in Germany, in Switzerland, in England, in Scotland, in France, in Italy, in the Netherlands, in Spain, and in other lands. At Wittenberg it was to man that Christian thought especially attached itself, to man fallen, but regenerated and justified by faith. At Geneva it was to God, to His sovereignty and His grace. ”

“ The Word of God, when heard among men, has a twofold effect. The first, as we have seen, is to win souls for God by the charm of the divine love which it reveals; but that is not all. It not only gives but demands: it insists on a new heart and a new life. The pride of man revolts against the commandments of God: the heart incensed is bitter against those who announce them, and impels to persecution. The evangelical word, like the creative, separates light from darkness, those who are obedient from those who rebel. This is what was then taking place in Scotland. ”

“ The cry, To the Rhone! was invariably heard at Geneva when popular risings took place. Froment was greeted with it when he began to preach the Gospel there; and some women would have thrown him over the bridge (du pont en bas) if a party of men had not rescued him. They did not, indeed, fling every one into the Rhone whom they threatened; but these cries could not but seem to Farel and Calvin a mournful return for their great and severe labors. ”

“ Hamilton had before him nothing but the Gospel, and he replied to all the reasonings of his antagonist with the clear, living, and profound word of the Scriptures. It has happened more than once that sincere men have embraced the truth a little while after having pronounced against it. Alesius, struck and embarrassed, was silenced, and felt as if ‘the morning-star were rising in his heart.’ It was not merely his understanding that was convinced. ”

“ Examine with the utmost care the brethren whom you accept as pastors; see that their doctrine be pure and their lives spotless. Inform yourselves even of their family and the family of their wives, as St. Paul enjoins. Without such care you will prepare your own ruin and that of your people. As for ceremonies, let them be wholesome. Exercise your Christian liberty, but in such a way as to cause offence to no one.’ The pastors of Geneva, they said, had received two letters in which they found no Christian charity or moderation at all, but which savored of pontifical authority. ”

“ There was, indeed, in the struggle for the renewal of Christendom, one will which conceived, one personality which acted, one voice which resounded with a force till then almost unknown, and in a thousand directions: it was, next to Luther’s, that of Calvin. But while a great general is indispensable in the day of battle, so also is an army trained by him for energetic conflict. The part which Geneva played in the sixteenth century is not explained by the character of one man alone, but by many concurrent circumstances both moral and political. ”

“ We shall not be entirely free from fear; if we were, it would rather be from stupidity than from courage. But we shall hold before us the shield of faith, lest our hearts should faint or fail through the terrors which beset us.’ [626] A victory which the court of Turin, with the aid of Spain and of the pope, failed to gain over the senate and people of Geneva, these two feeble men attempt and win. Here was one of the most beautiful triumphs of which the cause of religious liberty engaged in a conflict with the despotism of the state can boast. ”

“ The bishops, who gave their illegitimate daughters to the nobles, kept the best places in the Church for their bastards. These young world [11] lings, hurrying off to their pleasures, abandoned their flocks to monks, who retailed in the pulpit absurd legends of their saint, of his combats with the devil and of his flagellations, or amused the people with low jesting. This system, which passing for a representation of Christianity was merely its parody, destroyed not only Christian piety and morality, but the peace of families, the freedom of the people, and the prosperity of the kingdom. ”

“ It may be said of the things of grace in Scotland as of the works of Creation, that the sun did not come to scatter the mists which brooded over a nature melancholy and monotonous, and that the influence of the winds which, rushing forth from the neighboring seas, roared and raged over the barren heaths or over the fertile plains of Caledonia, was not softened by the breath divine which comes from heaven. ”

“ Nevertheless, to occupy the pulpit on that day in defiance of the prohibition of the government, which was supported by the majority of the people, would be a grave affair for these two men, both feeble in body, the one in consequence of his labors, and the other by constitution. ‘But,’ said Calvin one day, recalling a saying of David, ‘though a camp, an army, that is to say, everything which is terrible and appalling in the world, should rise up against us, though all men should conspire to destroy us, we have no fear of all their might, for the power of God is far greater. ”

“ But no sooner had our preachers raised their banner than the shadows were dispersed, and your preachers, taught by them and compelled by shame and the murmurs of the people, were obliged to follow their example, although they have still traces of these old follies.
‘Thou touchest on justification by faith. But this article, which stands supreme in our religion, has been effaced by you from the memory of men. Thou allegest that we take no account of good works. If thou lookest into my catechism, at the first word thou wilt be silent as if overcome. ”

“ The reformers were with the truth when they answered No. But where they were wrong was in requiring all the citizens to take an oath to their confession. Was it possible for them to fancy that the act by which Geneva had broken with the pope had transformed, as by the stroke of the enchanter’s wand, all the Genevese, so that from that moment they all believed heartily, and ought all to make confession with their lips? Nascitur homo, fit Christianus, said Tertullian in the second century. One is born a man, but one becomes a Christian. ”

“ Evident hypocrisy and shameless depravity, in any man making profession of being a Christian, are an injury to the whole Christian society. Union with God is incompatible with a state of sin; vice and virtue are two things which never go together. To regard as a trifle and a matter of indifference the implacable opposition which exists between truth and falsehood, between holiness and licentiousness, so that the one or the other may be pursued without any ground for preference, is the degradation of humanity and the scandal of scandals. ”

“ Was it not dissolute living, both on the part of the laity, and still more on the part of the monks and the priests, which had called forth in the Church the sharpest rebukes? It was not possible to purify the faith without purifying the life. That would have been a flagrant contradiction. If the Reformation made light of morality, it would destroy itself as Rome had done. With regard to doctrine, no one supposed that the reformed Church could hold in its bosom either Roman Catholics or pantheists who believed neither in God nor in the immortality of the soul. ”

“ Some pious men, dwellers most of them in the districts of Hill and Cunningham, were enlightened by the Gospel, and, confronting the Roman papacy, boldly declared that all true Christians receive every day spiritually the body of Jesus Christ by faith; that the bread remains bread after consecration, and that the natural body of Christ is not present; that there is a universal priesthood, of which every man and woman who believes in the Saviour is a member; that the pope, who exalts himself above God, is against God; that it is not permissible to take up arms for the things of faith ”

“ Nevertheless we do not confound the Father with the Word, nor the Word with the Spirit.’ Caroli rose and said with bitterness, ‘This profession is too short, too dry, too obscure. No mention is made in it of the Trinity, nor of substance, nor of person.’ Then taking a declamatory tone, he began to recite the Nicene creed, afterwards the Athanasian creed, making undignified gestures with his hands and arms, and moving his head and his body about in such an extraordinary way that the grave assembly could not refrain from laughter. ”

“ Linlithgow, the favorite abode of the court, was sometimes bright with unaccustomed splendor. The members of the royal family, and the most illustrious nobles of the kingdom, came to unite with the citizens and the people in the church. This fashionable auditory, whose looks were fixed on the reformer of three-and-twenty, did not at all intimidate him; the plainness, clearness, and conciseness which characterized Hamilton’s style were better adapted to act on the minds of the great than pompous declamation. ‘Knowest thou what this saying means,’ said he, ‘Christ died for thee? ”

“ Genevese, who were designated by the name of Huguenots, had declared for the Reformation because it attacked the abuses and the superstitions of popery, and because, in bidding them prove all things, it restored to them those privileges of free men of which Rome had robbed them; many had also been attracted by the love of novelty, others by the prospect of a new career opened to their ambition. There were doubtless a certain number of citizens who sincerely agreed with the Reformation, with the faith which it professed, and with the morals which it prescribed ”

“ Receive then the holy doctrine of Jesus which has been set before you, and let him alone suffice you. One better, wiser, or more powerful, we cannot find. Be Christians; be no longer papists.
‘O priests, canons, and monks, if henceforth you have no more the honors which you have previously enjoyed, if you should not be so well treated and fed, do not on that account destroy yourselves and the poor people. Better is it to enter into life eternal with the poor Lazarus than go with the rich bad man to hell. Leave, then, your songs and your masses, and follow Jesus. ”

“ This exclusion proposed to the senate is one of the gravest facts in the reformation of Geneva, and it kept up excitement in the city for nearly a whole generation. Wherein then were the reformers right, and wherein were they wrong? A society is a collection of men who, while differing on some matters, are in agreement on the subject which is the very essence of their union. A society of financiers is not composed of people who know nothing of money matters. It is not the unlearned who are admitted to a learned faculty. A regiment is not recruited with one-armed men. ”

“ People everywhere wanted to know the cause for which this young noble had given his life, and everyone took the side of the victim. ‘Just at the time when those cruel wolves,’ said Knox, ‘had, as they supposed, clean devoured their prey, a great crowd surrounded them and demanded of them an account for the blood which they had shed.’ ‘The faith for which Hamilton was burnt,’ said many, ‘is that which we will have.’ In vain was it that the guilty men, convicted by their own consciences, were inflamed with wrath, and uttered proud threats ”

“ A holy company indeed is that of the pope and his cardinals! Fair pillars of the church are bishops and prelates! Great zealots for the faith are the monks! It is greatly to be doubted whether, if all that multitude were thoroughly sifted, one man among them would be found deserving to be called a true member of the Church of Christ! It is of men who are all trying to get the benefices and the dignities of the Church that a general council consists, and this calls itself the Church universal. ”

“ The Reformation had begun in that country, obscurely and modestly, in some districts on the banks of the Rhone, on the shores of the lake of Neuchâtel, and in others besides. It now announced itself with power, and the mass of the people were going to embrace it. Men discourse much in books about the beautiful. We find true beauty, Christian beauty, evangelical, inward, more veiled perhaps than that of the world, but more pure and more solid, in the doctrine then proclaimed at Lausanne, and often in the manner in which it was set forth, although we have to make allowance for the time. ”

“ Lauder: ‘Thou, false heretic and renegade, hast said that every layman is a priest, and that the pope hath no more power than another man.’
Wishart: ‘I have read in some places of St. John and St. Peter, of the which one sayeth, He hath made us kings and priests; the other sayeth, He hath made us the kingly priesthood. Wherefore I have affirmed any man, being cunning and perfect in the Word of God and the true faith of Jesus Christ, to have his power given him of God. ”

“ Let all therefore, whether priests or preachers, have respect to the great shepherd Jesus Christ, who gave his body and his blood for the poor people. Let us prefer to be nothing, if only the poor sheep, gone so far astray, may find the right way, may come to Jesus and give themselves to God. That will be better than if we should gain all the world and lose those for whom Jesus died. If any man will exalt himself against Jesus, if any man will light against the faith, it would be better for him if he had never been born. ”

“ Meanwhile the council was busied with other matters.
The sorrow of Calvin, however, was deep. Feeling how great had been the goodness of God to him, he desired to be grateful for it. ‘Assuredly,’ he said, ‘no small honor has been conferred on us, in that a leader so mighty—Jesus Christ—has placed us in the ranks of his servants. We are therefore the most unthankful of men if we do not devote ourselves entirely to his service.’ [651] He had devoted himself to that work, and the voice of conscience told him that he must give account of every soul lost. ”