Calvinism

No better account of this remarkable (though now largely obsolete)
system has been drawn out than M�hler's in his "Symbolism or
Doctrinal Differences." The "Institutes of the Christian
Religion," in which Calvin depicted his own mind, were never
superseded by creed or formulary, though the writer subscribed, in
1540, at Worms to the Confession of Augsburg, i.e. the second
revised edition. To take his bearings in theology we must remember
that he succeeded Luther in point of time and was committed to a
struggle with Zwingli's disciples at Zurich and elsewhere, known
as Sacramentarians, but who tended more and more towards a
Christianity without mysteries. In 1549 he and Farel entered with
Bullinger into a moderate view as regarded the Eucharist, the
"Consensus Tigurinus," or compact of Zurich, which Bucer also
accepted. Another compact, of the "pastors of Geneva "
strengthened his hands, in 1552, on the subjects of
predestination, against Jerome Bolsec, whom he refuted and cast
into prison. Bolsec finally returned to the Catholic Church. In
1553 a controversy between the German Lutherans about the Lord's
Supper led Calvin to declare his agreement with Melanchthon (the
Philippists), but Melanchthon kept silence. Further complications
ensued when Beza, softening the real doctrine of Geneva, drew
nearer still to the Lutheran belief on this head. Bullinger and
Peter Martyr cried down Beza's unauthorized glosses; but Calvin
supported his favourite. Nevertheless, that "declaration" was
dropped by Beza when, in company with Farel, he put together a
"Confession of the French Church," and fell back on the creed of
Augsburg issued in 1530, while not assenting to its 10th article.
The Eucharist was to be more than a sign; Christ was truly present
in it, and was received by Faith (compare the English Prayer Book,
which reproduces his conception). Beyond these, on the whole,
abortive efforts toward a common understanding, Calvin never went.
His individual genius demanded its own expression; and he is
always like himself, unlike any other. The many creeds fell into
olivion; but the "Institutes" were recognized more and more as the
sum of Reformed Theology. It was said after 1560, by the Jesuit
St. Peter Canisius, that Calvin appeared to be taking Luther's
place even among Germans. Three currents have ever since held
their course in this development of Protestantism:

�  the mystic, derived from Wittenberg;

�  the logical-orthodox, from Geneva; and

�  the heterodox-rationalist, from Zurich (Zwingli), this last
being greatly increased, thanks to the Unitarians of Italy,
Ochino, Fausto, and Lelio Socino.

To the modern world, however, Calvin stands peculiarly for the
Reformation, his doctrine is supposed to contain the essence of
the Gospel; and multitudes who reject Christianity mean merely the
creed of Geneva.

Why does this happen? Because, we answer, Calvin gave himself out
as following closely in the steps of St. Paul and St. Augustine.
The Catholic teaching at Trent he judged to be Semi-Pelagian, a
stigma which his disciples fix especially on the Jesuit schools,
above all, on Molina. Hence the curious situation arises, that,
while the Catholic consent of the East and West finds little or no
acknowledgement as an historical fact among assailants of
religion, the views which a single Reformer enunciated are taken
as though representing the New Testament. In other words, a highly
refined individual system, not traceable as a whole to any
previous age, supplants the public teaching of centuries. Calvin,
who hated Scholasticism, comes before us, as Luther had already
done, in the shape of a Scholastic. His "pure doctrine" is gained
by appealing, not to tradition, the "deposit" of faith, but to
argument in abstract terms exercised upon Scripture. He is neither
a critic nor a historian; he takes the Bible as something given;
and he manipulates the Apostles' Creed in accordance with his own
ideas. The "Institutes" are not a history of dogma, but a
treatise, only not to be called an essay because of its peremptory
tone. Calvin annihilates the entire space, with all its
developments, which lies between the death of St. John and the
sixteenth century. He does, indeed, quote St. Augustine, but he
leaves out all that Catholic foundation on which the Doctor of
Grace built.

The "Institutes of the Christian Religion" are divided into four
books and exhibit a commentary on the Apostles' Creed.

�  Book I considers God the Creator, the Trinity, revelation,
man's first estate and original righteousness.

�  Book II describes the Fall of Adam, and treats of Christ the
Redeemer.

�  Book III enlarges on justifying faith, election, and
reprobation.

�  Book IV gives the Presbyterian idea of the Church.

In form the work differs from the "Summa" of St. Thomas Aquinas by
using exposition where the Angelic Doctor syllogizes; but the
style is close, the language good Latin of the Renaissance, and
the tone elevated, though often bitter. Arguments employed are
always ostensibly grounded on Scripture, the authority of which
rests not upon fallible human reasoning, but on the internal
persuasion of the Holy Spirit. Yet Calvin is embarrassed at the
outset by "unsteady men" who declare themselves enlightened of the
same spirit and in no want of Scripture. He endeavours to refute
them by the instance of St. Paul and other "primitive believers,"
i.e. after all, by Catholic tradition. It will be obvious,
moreover, that where the "Institutes" affirm orthodox tenets they
follow the Councils and the Fathers, while professing reliance on
the Bible alone. Thus we need not rehearse those chapters which
deal with the Nicene and Chalcedonian formulas.

We shall best apprehend Calvin's master-thought if we liken it to
modern systems of the Unconscious, or of physical
predetermination, wherein all effects lie folded up, as it were,
in one First Cause, and their development in time is necessitated.
Effects are thus mere manifestations, not fresh acts, or in any
way due to free will choosing its own course. Nature, grace,
revelation, Heaven, and Hell do but show us different aspects of
the eternal energy which works in all things. There is no free
will outside the Supreme. Zwingli argued that, since God was
infinite being, He alone existed -- there could be no other being,
and secondary or created causes were but instruments moved
entirely by Divine power. Calvin did not go to this length. But he
denies freedom to creatures, fallen or unfallen, except it be
libertas a coactione; in other words, God does not compel man to
act by brute force, yet he determines irresistibly all we do,
whether good or evil. The Supreme is indeed self-conscious -- not
a blind Fate or Stoic destiny; it is by "decree" of the sovereign
Lawgiver that events come to pass. But for such decrees no reason
can be rendered. There is not any cause of the Divine will save
Itself. If we ask why has the Almighty acted thus and thus, we are
told, "Quia ipse voluit" -- it is His good pleasure. Beyond this,
an explanation would be impossible, and to demand one is impiety.
From the human angle of sight, therefore God works as though
without a reason. And here we come upon the primal mystery to
which in his argument Calvin recurs again and again. This Supreme
Will fixes an absolute order, physical, ethical, religious, never
to be modified by anything we can attempt. For we cannot act upon
God, else He would cease to be the First Cause. Holding this clue,
it is comparatively simple to trace Calvin's footsteps along the
paths of history and revelation.

Luther had written that man's will is enslaved either to God or to
Satan, but it is never free. Melanchthon declaimed against the
"impious dogma of Free Will," adding that since all things happen
by necessity according to Divine predestination, no room was left
for it. This was truly the article by which the Reformation should
stand or fall. God is sole agent. Therefore creation, redemption,
election, reprobation are in such sense His acts that man becomes
merely their vehicle and himself does nothing. Luther, contending
with Erasmus, declares that "God by an unchangeable, eternal,
infallible will, foresees purposes and effects all things. By this
thunderbolt Free Will is utterly destroyed." Calvin shared
Luther's doctrine of necessity to the full; but he embroiled the
language by admitting in unfallen Adam a liberty of choice. He was
likewise at pains to distinguish between his own teaching and the
"nature bound fast in Fate" of the Stoics. He meant by liberty,
however, the absence of constraint; and the Divine wisdom which he
invoked could never be made intelligible to our understanding.
What he rejected was the Catholic notion of the self-determining
second cause. Neither would he allow the doctrine laid down by the
Fathers of Trent (Sess. VI Canon 16), that God permits evil deeds,
but is not their author. The condemnation struck expressly at
Melanchthon, who asserted that the betrayal by Judas was not less
properly God's act than the vocation of St. Paul. But by parity of
reasoning it falls upon Calvinism. For the "Institutes" affirm
that "man by the righteous impulsion of God does that which is
unlawful ," and that "man falls, the Providence of God so
ordaining" (IV, 18, 2; III, 23, 8). Yet elsewhere Calvin denied
this impulse as not in accordance with the known will of the
Almighty. Both he and Luther found a way of escape from the moral
dilemma inflicted on them by distinguishing two wills in the
Divine Nature, one public or apparent, which commanded good and
forbade evil as the Scripture teaches, the other just, but secret
and unsearchable, predetermining that Adam and all the reprobate
should fall into sin and perish. At no time did Calvin grant that
Adam's transgression was due to his own free will. Beza traces it
to a spontaneous, i.e. a natural and necessary, movement of the
spirit, in which evil could not fail to spring up. He justifies
the means -- sin and its consequences -- by the holy purpose of
the Creator who, if there were no one to punish, would be
incapable of showing that he is a righteously vindictive God. As,
however, man's intent was evil, he becomes a sinner while his
Creator remains holy. The Reformed confessions will not allow that
God is the author of sin -- and Calvin shows deep indignation when
charged with "this disgraceful falsehood." He distinguishes, like
Beza, the various intentions concurring to the same act on the
part of different agents- but the difficulty cannot well be got
over, that, in his view, the First Cause alone is a real agent,
and the rest mere instruments. It was objected to him that he gave
no convincing reasons for the position thus taken up, and that his
followers were swayed by their master's authority rather than by
the force of his logic. Even an admirer, J. A. Froude, tells us:

To represent man as sent into the world under a curse, as
incurably wicked-wicked by the constitution of his nature and
wicked by eternal decree-as doomed, unless exempted by special
grace which he cannot merit, or by any effort of his own obtain,
to live in sin while he remains on earth, and to be eternally
miserable when he leaves it-to represent him as born unable to
keep the commandments, yet as justly liable to everlasting
punishment for breaking them, is alike repugnant to reason and
conscience, and turns existence into a hideous nightmare. (Short
Studies, II, 3.)

Another way to define the Reformed theology would be to contrast
its view of God's eternal decrees with that taken in the Catholic
Church, notably by Jesuit authors such as Molina. To Calvin the
ordinances of Deity seemed absolute, i.e. not in any way regardful
of the creature's acts, which they predetermined either right or
wrong; and thus reprobation -- the supreme issue between all
parties -- followed upon God's unconditioned fiat, no account
being had in the decree itself of man's merits or demerits. For
God chose some to glory and others to shame everlasting as He
willed, not upon foreknowledge how they would act. The Jesuit
school made foreknowledge of "future contingencies" or of what
creatures would do in any possible juncture, the term of Divine
vision "i>"scientia media" which was logically antecedent (as a
condition not a cause) to the scheme of salvation. Grace, said
Catholic dogma, was offered to all men; none were excluded from
it. Adam need not have transgressed, neither was his fall pre-
ordained. Christ died for the whole human race; and every one had
such help from on high that the reprobate could never charge their
ruin upon their Maker, since he permitted it only, without an
absolute decree. Grace, then, was given freely; but eternal life
came to the saints by merit, founded on correspondence to the Holy
Spirit's impulse. All these statements Calvin rejected as
Pelagian, except that he would maintain, though unable to justify,
the- imputation of the sinner's lapse to human nature by itself.

To be consistent, this doctrine requires that no prevision of
Adam's Fall should affect the eternal choice which discriminates
between the elect and the lost. A genuine Calvinist ought to be a
supralapsarian; in other terms, the Fall was decreed as means to
an end; it did not first appear in God's sight to be the
sufficient cause why, if He chose, He might select some from the
"massa damnata," leaving others to their decreed doom. To this
subject St. Augustine frequently returns in his anti-Pelagian
treatises, and he lays great emphasis on the consequences to
mankind as regards their final state, of God's dealing with them
in fallen Adam. But his language, unlike that of Calvin, never
implies absolute rejection divorced from foreknowledge of man's
guilt. Thus even to the African Father, whose views in his latter
works became increasingly severe (see "On the Predestination of
the Saints" and "On Correction and Grace") there was always an
element of scientia media, i.e. prevision in the relation of God
with His creatures. But, to the Reformer who explained Redemption
and its opposite by sheer omnipotence doing as it would, the idea
that man could, even as a term of knowledge, by his free acts be
considered in the Everlasting Will was not conceivable. As the
Arian said, "How can the Eternal be begotten?" and straightway
denied the generation of the Word, in like manner Calvin, "How can
the contingent affect the First Cause on which it utterly
depends?" In the old dilemma, "either God is not omnipotent or man
is not self determined," the "Institutes" accept the conclusion
adverse to liberty. But it was, said Catholics, equally adverse to
morals; and the system has always been criticised on that ground.
In a word, it seemed to be antinomian.

With Augustine the Geneva author professed to be at one. "If they
have all been taken from a corrupt mass," he argued, "no marvel
that they are subject to condemnation." But, his critics replied,
"were they not antecedently predestined to that corruption?" And
"is not God unjust in treating His creatures with such cruel
mystery?" To this Calvin answers, "I confess that all descendants
of Adam fell by the Divine will," and that "we must return at last
to God's sovereign determination, the cause of which is hidden"
(Institutes, III, 23, 4). "Therefore," he concludes, "some men are
born devoted from the womb to certain death, that His name may be
glorified in their destruction." And the reason why such necessity
is laid upon them? "Because," says Calvin "life and death are acts
of God's will rather than of his foreknowledge," and "He foresees
further events only in consequence of his decree that they shall
happen." Finally, "it is an awful decree, I confess [horribile
decretum, fateor], but none can deny that God foreknew the future
final fate of man before He created him -- and that He did
foreknow it because it was appointed by His own ordinance."
Calvin, then, is a supralapsarian; the Fall was necessary; and our
first parents, like ourselves, could not have avoided sinning.

So far, the scheme presents a cast-iron logic at whatever expense
to justice and morality. When it comes to consider human nature,
its terms sound more uncertain, it veers to each extreme in
succession of Pelagius and Luther. In St. Augustine, that nature
is almost always viewed historically, not in the abstract hence as
possessed by unfallen Adam it was endowed with supernatural gifts,
while in his fallen children it bears the burden of concupiscence
and sin. But the French Reformer, not conceding a possible state
of pure nature, attributes to the first man, with Luther (in Gen.,
iii), such perfection as would render God's actual grace
unnecessary, thus tending to make Adam self-sufficient, as the
Pelagians held all men to be. On the other hand, when original sin
took them once captive the image of God was entirety blotted out.
This article of "total depravity" also came from Luther, who
expressed it in language of appalling power. And so the
"Institutes" announce that "in man all which bears reference to
the blessed life of the soul is extinct." And if it was "natural"
in Adam to love God and do justice, or a part of his very essence,
then by lapsing from grace he would have been plunged into an
abyss below nature, where his true moral and religious being was
altogether dissolved. So, at any rate, the German Protestants
believed in their earlier period, nor was Calvin reluctant to echo
them.

Catholics distinguish two kinds of beatitude: one corresponding to
our nature as a rational species and to be acquired by virtuous
acts; the other beyond all that man may do or seek when left to
his own faculties, and in such wise God's free gift that it is due
only to acts performed under the influence of a strictly
supernatural movement. The confusion of grace with nature in
Adam's essence was common to all the Reformed schools; it is
Peculiarly manifest in Jansenius, who strove to deduce it from St.
Augustine. And, granting the Fall, it leads by direct inference to
man's utter corruption as the unregenerate child of Adam. He is
evil in all that he thinks, or wills, or does. Yet Calvin allows
him reason and choice, though not true liberty. The heart was
poisoned by sin, but something remained of grace to hinder its
worst excesses, or to justify God's vengeance on the reprobate
(over and above their original fault inherited). On the whole, it
must be said that the "Institutes" which now and then allow that
God's image was not quite effaced in us, deny to mankind, so far
as redemption has not touched them, any moral and religious powers
whatsoever. With Calvin as with his predecessor of Wittenberg,
heathen virtue is but apparent, and that of the non-Christian
merely "political," or secular. Civilization, founded on our
common nature, is in such a view external only, and its justice or
benevolence may claim no intrinsic value. That it has no
supernatural value Catholics have always asserted; but the Church
condemns those who say, with Baius, "All the works of unbelievers
are sinful and the virtues of the philosophers are vices."
Propositions equivalent to these are as follows: "Free Will not
aided by God's grace, avails only to commit sin," and "God could
not have created man at the beginning such as he is now born"
(Props. 25, 27, 55, censured by St. Pius V, Oct., 1567, and by
Urban VIII, March, 1641). Catholic theology admits a twofold
goodness and righteousness -- the one natural, as Aristotle
defines it in his "Ethics," the other supernatural inspired by the
Holy Ghost. Calvin throws aside every middle term between
justifying faith and corrupt desire. The integrity of Adam's
nature once violated, he falls under the dominion of lust, which
reigns in him without hindrance, save by the external grace now
and again preventing a deeper degradation. But whatever he is or
does savours of the Evil One. Accordingly the system maintained
that faith (which here signifies trust in the Lutheran sense) was
the first interior grace given and source of all others, as
likewise that outside the Church no grace is ever bestowed.

We come on these lines to the famous distinction which separates
the true Church that of the predestined, from the seeming or
visible, where all baptized persons meet. This falls in with
Calvin's whole theory, but is never to be mistaken for the view
held by Roman authorities, that some may pertain to the soul of
the Church who are not members of its body. Always pursuing his
idea, the absolute predestinarian finds among Christians, all of
whom have heard the Gospel and received the sacraments, only a few
entitled to life everlasting. These obtain the grace which is in
words offered to every one; the rest fill up the measure of their
condemnation. To the reprobate, Gospel ordinances serve as a means
to compass the ruin intended for them. Hereby, also, an answer is
made possible when Catholics demand where the Reformed Church was
prior to the Reformation. Calvin replies that in every age the
elect constituted the flock of Christ, and all besides were
strangers, though invested with dignity and offices in the visible
communion. The reprobate have only apparent faith. Yet they may
feel as do the elect, experience similar fervours, and to the best
of their judgment be accounted saints. All that is mere delusion;
they are hypocrites "into whose minds God insinuates Himself, so
that, not having the adoption of sons, they may yet taste the
goodness of the Spirit." Thus Calvin explained how in the Gospel
many are called believers who did not persevere; and so the
visible Church is made up of saints that can never lose their
crown, and sinners that by no effort could attain to salvation.

Faith, which means assurance of election, grace, and glory, is
then the heritage of none but the predestined. But, since no real
secondary cause exists man remains passive throughout the temporal
series of events by which he is shown to be an adopted son of God.
He neither acts nor, in the Catholic sense co-operates with his
Redeemer. A difference in the method of conversion between Luther
and Calvin may here be noted. The German mystic begins, as his own
experience taught him, with the terrors of the law. The French
divine who had never gone through that stage, gives the first
place to the Gospel; and repentance, instead of preceding faith,
comes after it. He argued that by so disposing of the process,
faith appeared manifestly alone, unaccompanied by repentance,
which, otherwise, might claim some share of merit. The Lutherans,
moreover, did not allow absolute predestination. And their
confidence in being themselves justified, i.e. saved, was unequal
to Calvin's requirements. For he made assurance inevitable as was
its object to the chosen soul. Nevertheless, he fancied that
between himself and the sounder medieval scholastics no quarrel
need arise touching the principle of justification -- namely, that
"the sinner being delivered gratuitously from his doom becomes
righteous." Calvin overlooked in these statements the vital
difference which accounts for his aberration from the ancient
system. Catholics held that fallen man kept in some degree his
moral and religious faculties, though much impaired, and did not
lose his free will. But the newer doctrine affirmed man's total
incompetence, he could neither freely consent nor ever resist,
when grace was given, if he happened to be predestinate. If not,
justification lay beyond his grasp. However, the language of the
"Institutes" is not so uncompromising as Luther's had been. God
first heals the corrupt will, and the will follows His guidance;
or, we may say, cooperates.

The one final position of Calvin is that omnipotent grace of
itself substitutes a good for an evil will in the elect, who do
nothing towards their own conversion but when converted are
accounted just. In all the original theology of the Reformation
righteousness is something imputed, not indwelling in the soul. It
is a legal fiction when compared with what the Catholic Church
believes, namely, that justice or sanctification involves a real
gift, a quality bestowed on the spirit and inherent, whereby it
becomes the thing it is called. Hence the Council of Trent
declares (Sess. VI) that Christ died for all men, it condemns
(Canon XVII) the main propositions of Geneva, that "the grace of
justification comes only to the predestinate," and that "the
others who are called receive an invitation but no grace, being
doomed by the Divine power to evil." So Innocent X proscribed in
Jansenius the statement: "It is Semipelagian to affirm that Christ
died for all men, or shed His blood in their behalf." In like
manner Trent rejected the definition of faith as "confidence in
being justified without merit"; grace was not "the feeling of
love," nor was justification the "forgiveness of sin," and apart
from a special revelation no man could be infallibly sure that he
was saved. According to Calvin the saint was made such by his
faith, and the sinner by want of it stood condemned, but the
Fathers of Trent distinguished a dead faith, which could never
justify, from faith animated by charity -- and they attributed
merit to all good works done through Divine inspiration. But in
the Genevese doctrine faith itself is not holy. This appears very
singular; and no explanation has ever been vouchsafed of the power
ascribed to an act or mean, itself destitute of intrinsic
qualities, neither morally good nor in any way meritorious, the
presence or absence of which nevertheless fixes our eternal
destiny

But since Christ alone is our righteousness, Luther concluded that
the just man is never just in himself; that concupiscence, though
resisted, makes him sin damnably in all he does, and that he
remains a sinner until his last breath. Thus even the "Solid
Declaration" teaches, though in many respects toning down the
Reformer's truculence. Such guilt, however, God overlooks where
faith is found -- the one unpardonable sin is want of faith.
"Pecca fortiter sed crede fortius" -- this Lutheran epigram, "Sin
as you like provided you believe," expresses in a paradox the
contrast between corrupt human nature, filthy still in the very
highest saints, and the shadow of Christ, as, falling upon them,
it hides their shame before God. Here again the Catholic refuses
to consider man responsible except where his will consents; the
Protestant regards impulse and enticement as constituting all the
will that we have. These observations apply to Calvin -- but he
avoids extravagant speech while not differing from Luther in fact.
He grants that St. Augustine would not term involuntary desires
sin; then he adds, "We, on the contrary, deem it to be sin
whenever a man feels any desires forbidden by Divine law -- and we
assert the depravity to be sin which produces them" (Institutes,
III, 2, 10). On the hypothesis of determinism, held by every
school of the Reformers, this logic is unimpeachable. But it leads
to strange consequences. The sinner commits actions which the
saint may also indulge in; but one is saved the other is lost; and
so the entire moral contents of Christianity are emptied out.
Luther denominated the saint's liberty freedom from the law. And
Calvin, "The question is not how we can be righteous, but how,
though unworthy and unrighteous, we may be considered righteous."
The law may instruct and exhort, but "it has no place in the
conscience before God's tribunal." And if Christians advert to the
law, "they see that every work they attempt or meditate is
accursed" (Institutes, III, 19, 2, 4). Leo X had condemned
Luther's thesis, "In every good work the just man sins." Baius
fell under censure for asserting (Props. 74, 75) that
"concupiscence in the baptized is a sin, though not imputed." And,
viewing the whole theory, Catholics have asked whether a
sinfulness which exists quite independent of the will is not
something substantial, like the darkness of the Manichaeans, or
essential to us who are finite beings.

At all events Calvin seems entangled in perplexities on the
subject, for he declares expressly that the regenerate are "liable
every moment at God's judgment-seat to sentence of death"
(Instit., III, 2, 11); yet elsewhere he tempers his language with
a "so to speak," and explains it as meaning that all human virtue
is imperfect. He would certainly have subscribed to the "Solid
Declaration," that the good works of the pious are not necessary
to salvation. With Luther, he affirms the least transgression to
be a mortal sin, even involuntary concupiscence -- and as this
abides in every man while he lives, all that we do is worthy of
punishment (Instit., II, 8, 68, 59). And again, "There never yet
was any work of a religious man which, examined by God's severe
standard would not be condemnable" (Ibid., III, 14,11). The
Council of Trent had already censured these axioms by asserting
that God does not command impossibilities, and that His children
keep His word. Innocent X did the like when he proscribed as
heretical the fifth proposition of Jansenius, "Some commandments
of God are impossible to the just who will and endeavour; nor is
the grace by which they should become possible given to them."

Two important practical consequences may be drawn from this entire
view: first, that conversion takes place in a moment -- and so all
evangelical Protestants believe; and, second, that baptism ought
not to be administered to infants, seeing they cannot have the
faith which justifies. This latter inference produced the sect of
Anabaptists against whom Calvin thunders as he does, against other
"frenzied" persons, in vehement tones. Infant baptism was
admitted, but its value, as that of every ordinance, varied with
the predestination to life or to death of the recipient. To
Calvinists the Church system was an outward life beneath which the
Holy Spirit might be present or absent, not according to the
dispositions brought by the faithful, but as grace was decreed.
For good works could not prepare a man to receive the sacraments
worthily any more than to be justified in the beginning. If so,
the Quakers might well ask, what is the use of sacraments when we
have the Spirit? And especially did this reasoning affect the
Eucharist. Calvin employs the most painful terms in disowning the
sacrifice of the Mass. No longer channels of grace, to Melanchthon
the sacraments are "Memorials of the exercise of faith," or badges
to be used by Christians. From this point of view, Christ's real
presence was superfluous, and the acute mind of Zwingli leaped at
once to that conclusion, which has ever since prevailed among
ordinary Protestants. But Luther's adherence to the words of the
Scripture forbade him to give up the reality, though he dealt with
it in his peculiar fashion. Bucer held an obscure doctrine, which
attempted the middle way between Rome and Wittenberg. To Luther
the sacraments serve as tokens of God's love; Zwingli degrades
them to covenants between the faithful. Calvin gives the old
scholastic definition and agrees with Luther in commending their
use, but he separates the visible element proffered to all from
the grace which none save the elect may enjoy. He admits only two
sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Even these neither
contain nor confer spiritual graces; they are signs, but not
efficacious as regards that which is denoted by them. For inward
gifts, we must remember, do not belong to the system, whereas
Catholics believe in ordinances as acts of the Man-God, producing
the effects within the soul which He has promised, "He that eateth
Me shall live by Me."

When the Church's tradition was thrown aside, differences touching
the Holy Eucharist sprang up immediately among the Reformers which
have never found a reconciliation. To narrate their history would
occupy a volume. It is notable, however, that Calvin succeeded
where Bucer had failed, in a sort of compromise, and the agreement
of Zurich which he inspired was taken up by the Swiss Protestants.
Elsewhere it led to quarrels, particularly among the Lutherans,
who charged him with yielding too much. He taught that the Body of
Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, and that the believer
partakes of it that the elements are unchanged, and that the
Catholic Mass was idolatry. Yet his precise meaning is open to
question. That he did not hold a real objective presence seems
clear from his arguing against Luther, as the "black rubric" of
the Common Prayer Book argues -- Christ's body, he says, is in
heaven. Therefore, it cannot be on earth. The reception was a
spiritual one; and this perfectly orthodox phrase might be
interpreted as denying a true corporal presence. The Augsburg
Confession, revised by its author Melanchthon, favoured ambiguous
views -- at last he declared boldly for Calvin, which amounted to
an acknowledgment that Luther's more decided language overshot the
mark. The "Formula of Concord" was an attempt to rescue German
Churches from this concession to the so-called Sacramentarians; it
pronounced, as Calvin never would have done, that the unworthy
communicant receives Our Lord's Body; and it met his objection by
the strange device of "ubiquity" -- namely, that the glorified
Christ was everywhere. But these quarrels lie outside our
immediate scope.

As Calvin would not grant the Mass to be a sacrifice, nor the
ministers of the Lord's Supper to be priests, that conception of
the Church which history traces back to the earliest Apostolic
times underwent a corresponding change. The clergy were now
"Ministers of the Word," and the Word was not a tradition,
comprising Scripture in its treasury, but the printed Bible,
declared all-sufficient to the mind which the Spirit was guiding.
Justification by faith alone, the Bible, and the Bible only, as
the rule of faith -- such were the cardinal principles of the
Reformation. They worked at first destructively, by abolishing the
Mass and setting up private judgment in opposition to pope and
bishops. Then the Anabaptists arose. If God's word sufficed, what
need of a clergy? The Reformers felt that they must restore creeds
and enforce the power of the Church over dissidents. Calvin, who
possessed great constructive talent, built his presbytery on a
democratic foundation -- the people were to choose, but the
ministers chosen were to rule. Christian freedom consisted in
throwing off the yoke of the Papacy, it did not allow the
individual to stand aloof from the congregation. He must sign
formulas, submit to discipline, be governed by a committee of
elders. A new sort of Catholic Church came into view, professing
that the Bible was its teacher and judge, but never letting its
members think otherwise than the articles drawn up should enjoin.
None were allowed in the pulpit who were not publicly called, and
ordination, which Calvin regarded almost as a sacrament, was
conferred by the presbytery.

In his Fourth Book the great iconoclast, to whom in good logic
only the Church invisible should have signified anything, makes
the visible Church supreme over Christians, assigns to it the
prerogatives claimed by Rome, enlarges on the guilt of schism, and
upholds the principle, Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. He will not
allow that corrupt morals in the clergy, or a passing eclipse of
doctrine by superstition, can excuse those who, on pretence of a
purer Gospel, leave it. The Church is described in equivalent
terms as indefectible and infallible. All are bound to hear and
obey what it teaches. Luther had spoken of it with contempt almost
everywhere in his first writings; to him the individual guided by
the Holy Spirit was autonomous. But Calvin taught his followers so
imposing a conception of the body in which they were united as to
bring back a hierarchy in effect if not in name. "Where the
ministry of Word and Sacraments is preserved," he concludes, "no
moral delinquencies can take away the Church's title." He had
nevertheless, broken with the communion in which he was born. The
Anabaptists retorted that they did not owe to his new-fashioned
presbytery the allegiance he had cast away -- the Quakers, who
held with him by the Inward Light, more consistently refused all
jurisdiction to the visible Church.

One sweeping consequence of the Reformation is yet to be noticed.
As it denied the merit of good works even in the regenerate, all
those Catholic beliefs and ordinances which implied a Communion of
Saints actively helping each other by prayer and 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 rid
of them all: do they not make void the Cross of Christ our only
Redeemer? (Instit., III, 5, 6). 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
nothing about what passes on earth. Wherever the Reformers
triumphed, a wholesale destruction of shrines and relics took
place. Monasticism, being an ordered system of mortification on
Catholic principles, offended 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 filling 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 confidently 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 grace of
God to perform it unto our justification; Luther [and Calvin
equally] that, whereas we are condemned by the law, Christ has
Himself performed it unto our justification -- Augustine, that our
righteousness is active; Luther, that it is passive; Augustine,
that it is imparted, Luther that it is only imputed; Augustine,
that it consists in a change of heart; Luther, in a change of
state. Luther maintains 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
says instead, to know and keep it -- Luther says, that the Law and
Christ cannot dwell together in the heart. Augustine says that the
Law is Christ; Luther denies and Augustine maintains that
obedience is a matter of conscience. Luther says that a man is
made a Christian not by working but by hearing; Augustine excludes
those works only which are done before grace is given; Luther,
that our best deeds are sins; Augustine, that they are really
pleasing 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 1530, 1532, 1536. The
Anglican 42 Articles of 1553, composed by Cranmer and Ridley, were
reduced to 39 under Elizabeth in 1562. They bear evident tokens of
their Calvinistic origin, but are designedly ambiguous 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 before 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
superfluous 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
Manichaean errors, as they said, which Calvin had taken under his
patronage. But the Gomarists renewed his dogmas; and their belief
met a favourable reception among the Dutch, French, and Swiss. In
England the dispute underwent many vicissitudes. The Puritans, 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 revelation.
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. John Knox had, in 1560 edited the "First
Book of Discipline," which follows Geneva, but includes a
permissive ritual. The "Second Book of Discipline" was sent out by
a congregation 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 religio. Hence an alternation and
confusion of formulas ensued down to the Peace of Westphalia 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 Brandenburg, exchanging the Lutheran tenets for
the Genevese, imposed on his Prussians the "Confession of the
Marches." In general, the reformed Protestants allowed dogmatic
force to the revised Confession of Augsburg (1540) which Calvin
himself had signed.

WILLIAM BARRY

Transcribed by Tomas Hancil

http://www.knight.org/advent

From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.

Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).

This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the  entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this  worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
mail at (knight.org/advent). For  more information please download
the file cathen.txt/.zip.

-------------------------------------------------------

  Provided courtesy of:

       Eternal Word Television Network
       PO Box 3610
       Manassas, VA 22110
       Voice: 703-791-2576
       Fax: 703-791-4250
       Data: 703-791-4336
       Web: http://www.ewtn.com
       FTP: ewtn.com
       Telnet: ewtn.com
       Email address: sysop@ ewtn.com

  EWTN provides a Catholic online
  information and service system.

-------------------------------------------------------

You are viewing proxied material from gopher.ratthing.com. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.