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CALVINISM
self-sacrifice were flung aside. Thus Purgatory.
Masses for the dead, invocation of the blessed in
Heaven, and their intercession for us are scouted by
Calvin as "Satan's devices". A single argument gets
riil of them all: do they not make void the Cross ol
Christ our only Redeemer? (Instit., III. .">. 0). Beza
declared that " prayer to the saints destroys the unity
of God. The Dutch Calvinists affirmed of them, as
the Epicureans of their deities, that they knew noth-
ing about what passes on earth. Wherever the Re-
formers triumphed, a wholesale destruction of shrines
and relics took place. Monasticism, being an ordered
system of mortification on Catholic principles, of-
fended all who thought such works needless or even
dangerous: it fell, and great was the fall thereof, in
Protestant Europe. The Calendar had been framed
as a yearly ritual, commemorating Our Lord's life and
sufferings, with saints' days tilling it up. Calvin
would tolerate the Swiss of Berne who desired to keep
the Gospel festivals; but his Puritan followers left the
year blank, observing only the Sabbath, in a spirit of
Jewish legalism. After such a fashion the Church was
divorced from the political order; the living Christian
ceased to have any distinct relation with his departed
friends: the saints became mere memories, or were
suspected of Popery: the churches served as houses
of preaching, where the pulpit had abolished the altar;
and Christian art was a thing of the past.
The Reformers, including Calvin, appealed so con- fidently to St. Augustine's volumes that it seems only fair to note the real difference which exists between his doctrine and theirs. Cardinal Newman sums it up as follows: "The main point is whether the Moral Law can in its substance be obeyed and kept, by the regenerate Augustine says, that whereas we are by nature condemned by the Law, we are enabled by the
- of God to perform it unto our justification;
Luther [and Calvin equally] that, whereas we are con- demned by the law, Christ has Himself performed it unto our justification; — Augustine, that our right- eousness is active; Luther, that it is passive: Augus- tine, that ir is imparted; Luther, that it is only im- puted; Augustine, that it consists in a change of lieai t; Luther, in a change of state. Luther main- tains that God's commandments are impossible to man; Augustine adds, impossible without His grace; — Luther, that the Gospel consists of promises only; Augustine, that it is also a law: Luther, that our highest wisdom is not to know the Law; Augustine ostead, to know and keep it: — Luther says, that the Law anil Christ cannot dwell together in the heart; Augustine says, that tin- Law is Christ; — Luther denies and Augustine maintains that obedi- ence is a matter of conscience; — Luther says, that a man is made a < Ihristian not by working but by hear- ing; Augustine excludes those works only which are done before grace is given; — Luther, that our best deeds are sins: Augustine, that they are really pleas- ing to God" (Lectures on Justification, ch. ii, 58).
As, unlike the Lutheran, those Churches which looked up to Calvin as their teacher did not accept one uniform standard, they fell into particular groups and had each their formulary. The three Helvetic Confessions, the Tetrapolitan, that of Basle, and that composed by Bullinger belong respectively to 15.30, 1534, 1536. The Anglican 41' Articles of 1553, com- posed by Cranmer and Ridley, were reduced to 39 under Elizabeth in 1562. They bear evident tokens of their Calvinistic origin, but are designedly ambigu- ous in terms and meaning. The French Protestants, in a Synod at Paris. 1559, framed their own articles. In 1562 those of the Netherlands accepted a profession drawn up by Guy de Bres and Saravia in French, which the Synod of Dort (1574) approved. A much more celebrated meeting was held at this place,
1618-19, to adjudicate between the High Calvinists, or Supralapsarians, who held unflinchingly to the
doctrine of the "Institutes" touching predestination,
and the Remonstrants who opposed them. Gomar
led the former party; Arminius, though he died be-
fore the synod, in 1609, had communicated his milder
views to Uytenbogart and Episcopius, hence called
Arminians. They objected to the doctrine of election
before merit, that it made the work of Christ super-
fluous and inexplicable. The Five Articles which
contained their theology turned on election, adoption,
justification, sanctification, and sealing by the Spirit,
all which Divine acts presuppose that man has been
called, has obeyed, and is converted. Redemption
is universal, reprobation due to the sinner's fault,
and not to God's absolute decree. In these and the
like particulars, we find the Arminians coming close
to Tridentine formulas. The "Remonstrance" of
1610 embodied their protest against the Manichoean
errors, as they said, which Calvin had taken under
his patronage. But the Gomarists renewed his dog-
mas; and their belief met a favourable reception
among the Dutch, French, and Swiss. In England
the dispute underwent many vicissitudes; the Puri-
tans, as afterwards their Nonconformist descendants,
generally sided with Gomar; the High Church party
became Arminian. Wesley abandoned the severe
views of Calvin; Whitefield adopted them as a rev-
elation. The Westminster Assembly (1643-47) made
an attempt to unite the Churches of Great Britain on
a basis of Calvinism, but in vain. Their Catechism,
the Larger and the Smaller, enjoyed authority by
Act of Parliament; the Smaller is binding still oil
Scottish Presbyterians. John Knox had, in 1560,
edited the "First Book of Discipline", which follows
Geneva, but includes a permissive ritual. The "Sec-
ond Book of Discipline" was sent out by a congrega-
tion under Andrew .Melville's influence'in 1572, and
in 1592 the whole system received Parliamentary
sanction. But James I rejected the doctrines of Dort.
In Germany the strange idea was prevalent that civil
rulers ought to fix the creed of their subjects, Cujus
regio, ejus religin. Hence an alternation and confu-
sion of formulas ensued down to the Peace of West-
phalia in 1648. Frederick III, Count Palatine, put
forward, in 1562, the Heidelberg Catechism, which is
of Calvin's inspiration. John George of Anhalt-
Dessau laid down the same doctrine in 20 Articles
(1597). Maurice of Hesse-Cassel patronized the
Synod of Dort; and John Sigismund of Branden-
burg, exchanging the Lutheran tenets for the Gene-
vese, imposed on his Prussians the "Confession of the
Marches". In general, the reformed Protestants al-
lowed dogmatic force to the revised Confession of
Augsburg (1540) which Calvin himself had signed.
See Predestination; Eucharist; Church; Grace; Huguenots.
The works ef Calvin are found complete in J. Calvini Opera qua: supevsunt omnia, ed. Baum, CuNITZ, and Kecss (Bruns- wick and Berlin, 1863-1900}.— The last (59th) volume con- tains a mod bibliography by Erichson; the same volume (pp. 461-512) gives a rhronnloKir.il catalogue "f bis writings. — Bon-net, Lettres Francoises de Jean Calvin (Paris, 1854); Herminjard, Correspomlanre des nformaleurs ilans Us pays de languc francaisc (Geneva, 1866-1897). Cf. Zurich Letters in Parker Society Series (London, 1840). Beza published a French Lift of Calvin (Geneva, 15641, also a Latin life (Lau- sanne, 157.'. . Loth at onre translated into English (London, 1565, 1.577 j ; the Frenrh life was re-ed. by Franklin I 1869). Among the modern lives of Calvin by Protestant au- thors are those of Henry (Hamburg, ls',5 i i. :; vols.!, tr by Stebbing: (London, 1849), Herzoo (Basle, 1843), Staheun (Elberfeld, 1861), Bungener (Paris, lstvj). MeOm , Years of John Cab ni (London, 18S0). Especiaiiv exhaustive
is DOOMERGCE, Jrnn Calrin lo Vols , I'aris, 1899); cf. >•
History of the Christian Church (New York, 1892), VII, 257
sqq. Among Catholic works on Calvin (apart from Maim-
. i • \ tin
ouvrages el de I olvin (Paris. 1841; also
Is. I; tr. by Gill, London, ism, 1S50\ and Kampfsi hot ra,
I sein Stoat. Leipzig (Ii, 1869,
II 1899, ed by Gotz, an important stu.lv followed by
Ft/nk in KtrcAenlezifcon (1883). II. I7l's ii. See also Seider,
in Buchberger, Kirehlxchet Handlexilum (Munich, 1906), I,
SI. 19, and HeROENROTHER-KiBSCH, Kirrheno'srhirhte ( Ith
ed., Freiburg, 1907), III, 139-47. On Calvin's stay at Ferrara,
