§ 68. TRIBUTES TO THE MEMORY OF CALVIK. 287
but only to God, the Author of that most blessed fountain, the Book of Life, and of the admirable dexterity of wit, together with the helps of other learning, which were his guides. — We should be injurious unto virtue itself, if we did derogate from them whom their industry hath made great. Two things of principal moment there are, which have deservedly procured him honor throughout the world : the one, his exceeding pains in composing the histitiitions of the Christian Heligion ; the other, his no less industrious travails for exposition of Holy Scripture, according unto the same Institutions, . . .
"Of what account the Master of Sentences [Peter Lombard] was in the Church of Rome; the same and more, among the preachers of Reformed Churches, Calvin had purchased; so that the perfectest divines were judged they which were skilf uUest in Calvin's writings ; his books almost the very canon to judge both doctrine and discipline by."
Bishop Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626).
"Calvin was an illustrious person, and never to be mentioned without a preface of the highest honor."
Dr. John Donne (1573-1631).
Royal Chaplain and Dean of St. Paul's, London ; distinguished as a poet and divine.
"St. Augustin, for sharp insight and conclusive judgment in exposition of places of Scripture, which he always makes so liquid and pervious, hath scarce been equalled therein by any of all the writers in the Church of God, except Calvin may have that honor, for whom (when it concerns not points of controversy) I see the Jesuits themselves, though they dare not name him, have a high degree of reverence."
Bishop Hall (1574-1656).
Works, III. 516.
"Reverend Calvin, whose judgment I so much honor, that I reckon him among the best interpreters of Scripture since the Apostles left the earth."
Bishop Sanderson (1587-1663).
" When I began to set myself to the study of Divinity as my proper business, Calvin's Institutions were recommended to me, as they generally were to all young scholars in those times, as the best and most perfect system of Divinitj', and the fittest to be laid as a groundwork in the study of the profession. And, indeed, my exi^ectation was not at all ill-deemed in the study of those Institutions."
Richard Baxter (1615-1691).
" I know no man, since the Apostles' days, whom I value and honor more than Calvin, and whose judgment in all things, one with another, I more esteem and come nearer to."
288 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
Bishop Wilson of Calcutta.
From Sermon preached on the death of the Rev. Basil Wood.
" Calvin's Commentaries remain, after three centuries, unparalleled for force of mind, justness of exposition, and practical views of Christianity."
Archbishop Lavv^rence.
From his Bampion Lectures.
"Calvin was both a wise and a good man, inferior to none of his contemporaries in general ability, and superior to almost all in the art, as well as elegance, of composition, in the perspicuity and arrangement of his ideas, the structure of his periods, and the Latinity of his diction."
Archdeacon Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855).
He had, of all Englishmen, the best knowledge and highest appreciation of Luther.
From his Mission of the Comforter, II. 449.
"Calvin's Commentaries, although they too are almost entirely doctrinal and practical, taking little note of critical and ijliilosopliical questions, keep much closer to the text [than Luther's], and make it their one business to bring out the meaning of tlie words of Scripture with fulness and precision. This they do with the excellence of a master riciily endowed with tlie word of wisdom and with the word of knowledge, and from the exemplary union of a severe masculine understanding with a profound insight into tiie spiritual depths of the Scriptures, they are especially calculated to be useful in counteracting the erroneous tendencies of an age, when we seem about to be inundated with all that was fantastical and irrational in the exegetical mysticism of the Fathers, and are bid to see divine power in all allegorical cobwebs, and iieavenly life in artificial flowers. I do not mean to imply an a(lo])tion or approval of all Calvin's views, wlietlier on doctrinal or other questions. But we may happily owe much gratitude and love, and the deepest intellectual obligations, to those whom at the same time we may deem to be mistaken on certain points."
Thomas H. Dyer.
The Life of John Calvin. London, 1850, p. 533 sq.
"That Calvin was in some respects a really great man, and that the eloquent panegyric of his friend and disciple Beza contains much that is true, will hardly be denied. In any circumstances his wonderful abilities and extensive learning would have made him a shining light among the doctors of the Reformation; an accidental, or, as his friends and followers would say, a providential and predestinated visit to Geneva, made him the head of a numerous and powerful sect. Naturally deficient in that courage which forms so prominent a trait in Luther's character, and which prompted him to beard kings and emperors face to face, Calvin arrived at Geneva at a time when the rough and initiatory work of Reform had already been accomplished by