392 THE KEFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
say, I hold both to be true that all things happen according to divine foreordination, and yet according to their own laws, although he could not harmonize the two. I maintain the proposition that God is not the author of sin, and therefore cannot will it. David was by his own will carried into transgression.! He might have retained the Holy Spirit. In this conflict there is some margin for free will. . . . Let us accuse our own will if we fall, and not find the cause in God. He will help and aid those who fight in earnest. M6i'ov de\y}<Tov, says Basilius, Kal debs irpoairavTo.. God promises and gives help to those who are willing to receive it. So says the Word of God, and in this let us abide. I am far from prescribing to you, the most learned and experienced man in all things that belong to piety. I know that in general you agree with my view. I only suggest that this mode of expression is better adapted for practical use." ^
In a letter to Camerarius, 1552, Melanchthon expresses his dissatisfaction with the manner in which Calvin emphasized the doctrine of predestination, and attempted to force the Swiss churches to accept it in the Consensus Genevensis.^
Calvin made another attempt in 1554 to gain him to his view, but in vain.* On one point, however, he could agree to a certain modification ; for he laid stress on the spontaneity of the will, and rejected Luther's paradoxes, and his comparison of the natural man to a dead statue.
It is greatly to the credit of Calvin that, notwithstanding his sensitiveness and intolerance against the opponents of his favorite dogma, he respected the judgment of the most eminent Lutheran divine, and gave signal proof of it by publishing a French translation of the improved edition of Melanchthon's Theological Commonplaces in 1546, with a commendatorj'- preface of his own,^ in which he says that the
^ This is a direct contradiction to the assertion in the first edition of his Loci (1521), and his commentary on the Romans (1524), that God does all things not permissive, but patenter, and that he foreordained and wrought the adultery of David, and the treason of Judas, as well as the vocation of Paul. He so understood the Epistle to the Romans. In December, 1525, Luther expressed the same views in his book against Erasmus, which he never recalled, but pronounced one of his best books (1537).
2 "Ad usum accommodata."
^ Mel. Opera, in the Corpus Heformatorum , VII. 390.
* Opera, XV. 215-217. Dated 6 Calendas Septembris.
5 The preface is reprinted in his Opera, vol. IX. 847-850.
§ 90. CALVIN AND MELANCHTHON. 393
book was a brief summary of all things necessary for a Christian to know on the way of salvation, stated in the simplest manner by the profoundly learned author. He does not conceal the difference of views on the subject of free will, and says that Melanchthon seems to concede to man some share in his salvation ; yet in such a manner that God's grace is not in any way diminished, and no ground is left to us for boasting.
This is the only example of a Reformer republishing and recommending the work of another Reformer, which was the only formidable rival of his own chief work on the same subject (the Institutes^, and differed from it in several points.^
The revival of the unfortunate eucharistic controversy by Luther in 1545, and the equally unfortunate controversy caused by the imperial Interim in 1548, tried the friendship of the Reformers to the uttermost. Calvin respectfully, yet frankly, expressed his regret at the indecision and want of courage displayed by Melanchthon from fear of Luther and love of peace.
When Luther came out a year before his death with his most violent and abusive book against the " Sacramentarians,"^ which deeply grieved Melanchthon and roused the just indignation of the Zwinglians, Calvin wrote to Melanchthon (June 28, 1545) : ^ —
" Would that the fellow-feeling which enables me to condole with you, and to sympathize in your heaviness, might also impart the power in some degree at least to lighten your sorrow. If the matter stands as the Ziirichers say it does, then they have just occasion for their writing. . . . Your Pericles allows himself to be carried beyond all bounds with his love of thunder, especially
1 Henry justly remarks (I. 370) : "So free were these rare men of ambition, love of glory, and littleness of spirit, that they thought of nothing but the salvation of the world. Calvin wanted France to love Melanchthon as much as he did, and to be converted to Christ through him." Comp. Stahelin, I. 244.
2 His " Short Confession on the Lord's Supper." See this History, vol. VL 654 sqq.
8 Bonnet-Constable, I. 442-444 ; Opera, XII. 98-100.