Quite the entire Corpus of the works of J. Calvin is available online: click on the image below

JOHN CALVIN

(1509-1564) 

John Calvin was the right man, at the right time, in the right place

The right man

Born in the region of Picardy in France, at the age of 14 Calvin entered the University of Paris, the most eminent seat of learning in Europe at that time. Following graduation In classics he went on to study law at the Universities of Orleans, Bourges and Poitiers.
Calvin returned to Paris in 1531 to continue his studies in classics and law and to perfect his Latin, Greek and Hebrew. It was said of him that he was "all Logic and Latin. 

During this period he studied the writings of Erasmus and Luther and became involved with the Humanists and Reformers of Paris: among others, Jacques Lefebvre d'Etaples, the "Erasmus of France" and translator of the Scriptures Into French; Clement Marot, the inspired and gifted translator/composer of the Psalms into verse and hymns; the reforming Bishop of Meaux; William Farel, best known as the early leader of the Reform in Geneva; and Marguerite Queen of Navarre and sister to the King of France, Francis I.

His study of the Bible led him to the conviction that while God is revealed in both nature and reason He Is supremely revealed in Holy Scriptures. Calvin, utterly committed to this truth, lived under the influence and authority of the Word of God until his life's end.

Persecution of Humanists and Reformers was begun by the dominant forces of Church and State and Calvin, like others, fled the country. In 1535 he arrived in Basel and during his first year in the city he wrote the Institutes of the Christian Religion- a concise, clear, convincing statement of Reformed belief. The Institutes were first published in 1536 and while they went through many editions during Calvin's lifetime his basic position of 1536 changed little.

The Institutes were divided into four books:

I The Knowledge of God the Creator

II The Knowledge of God the Redeemer

III The Reception of the Grace of Christ

IV The Holy Catholic Church

Calvin, In his Institutes reveals his wide knowledge and understanding of the Bible, the church Fathers and philosophers and theologians ancient and modern. In the Institutes he quotes over 2,500 texts from virtually every book of the Bible, and some 500 references and quotations from the Church Fathers and other theologians and philosophers. (Fortunately to read Calvin's Institutes is to find them clearer, more understandable and more Inspiring than all the books that ave been written to interpret Calvin and his major work!). "No work has had a greater or a more formative influence on Protestant Theology." (Introduction to a 1949 Edition of the Institutes.)

The right time

The publication of Calvin's Institutes came at just the right time. He became famous overnight. The authority and dominance of the Church vas everywhere discussed and challenged. The assault of Luther and the Reformers on the Church was now two decades old but little had as yet been done to provide a positive statement of Reformed belief. The ancient tradition and absolute authority of the Church had been called into question and condemned but little had been offered to replace it. Confusion was rampant; there was anarchy in thought and life. Into this confusion came Calvin's Institutes - a positive statement of the Reformed faith.

Writes J.S. Whale in The Protestant Tradition

Calvin "saw that if the new evangel was to replace the ancient Church it had to learn the secret of her power, and to discover the evangelical counterpart of her authority, unity and universality." ... From Calvin, through the Institutes and writings, "there went to the ends of earth a conception of religion August in its authority, secure and venerable In its foundation, complete In the range of its application, thorough If not terrible in Its logic." Calvin was truly "an architect on earth of that city whose builder and maker is God."

The right place

While passing through Geneva in 1536 Calvin had a meeting with William Farel, his colleague from Paris and now the fiery Reformer of Geneva. In May Farel had led Genevans to rid themselves of Rome, and having brought them this far he knew he needed someone of Calvin's calibre to lead and educate them In the Reformed faith. Calvin was determined to return to the comparative quiet of Basel to continue his studies but Farel prevailed on him to remain in Geneva. "Farel kept me at Geneva," wrote Calvin, "not so much by advice and entreaty es by a dreadful adjuration, as if God had stretched forth His hand upon me from on high to arrest me."

Geneva was certainly the right place for Calvin. Recently gaining its freedom from the Duke of Savoy, Geneva and the surrounding villages had become a Republic. Now they were free of Rome as well. At one of the strategic crossroads of Europe Geneva was a commercial and trading centre and was soon to become centre of Protestantism.

Except for one brief period Calvin spent the rest of his life In Geneva. Geneva, under Calvin, became the centre of Reformed and Protestant belief and a centre of refuge for Protestants fleeing persecution in their homelands. From Geneva they returned home taking with them Calvin's concept of God and His Church. The Reformed Church in Scotland, Holland, Hungary, Switzerland and France all expressed the Reformed tradition of Calvin and Geneva. The Anglicans and Puritans in England and the Church in Germany also came under the influence of Calvinism.

Calvin preached and taught daily in the Cathedral of St. Peter in Geneva, wrote commentaries on the books of the Bible and conducted voluminous correspondence with leaders of the Reformation in Church and State, providing opinion and encouragement.

So great was the influence of Calvin, his life and-thinking, and his Institutes of the Christian Religion on the world that Lord Morley, the 19th century English historian and biographer said that "To omit Calvin from the forces of western evolution is to read history with one eye shut.

Rev. Ralfh Watson