402 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
little, still if I have in me any talent, skill, authority, industry, I offer them all to you and your interests, and will regard it as a great favor to myself should you be able to reap any fruit and advantage from my labor and assistance in things human and divine."
The Council of Geneva politely acknowledged the receipt of the cardinal's letter with thanks for the compliments paid to the Genevese, and promised a full repl)^ in due time. This was March 27. On the next day a number of citizens, under the lead of Frangois Chamois, entered a protest against the ordinance by which the Confession of Faith had been adopted, July 29, 1537, and asked to be released from the oath. The Romanists took courage. No one could be found in Geneva who was able to answer the cardinal's letter, and silence might be construed into consent.
Calvin received a copy of the appeal through Sulzer, a minister of Bern, wrote an answer of more than twice its length in six days, and despatched it to Geneva in time to neutralize the mischief (Sept. 1). Though not mentioned by name, he was indirectly assailed by the cardinal as the chief among those who had been denounced as misleaders and disturbers of the peace of Geneva. He therefore felt it his duty to take up the pen in defence of the Reformation.
He begins by paying a just tribute to the cardinal for his " excellent learning and admirable eloquence," which raised him to a place among the first scholars of the age. Nor did he impeach his motives. " I will give you credit," he says, " for having written to the Genevese with the purest intention as becomes one of your learning, prudence, and gravity, and for having in o^ood faith advised them to the course which you believed to be to their interest and safety." He was, therefore, reluctant to oppose him, and he did so only under an imperative sense of duty. We let him speak for himself.^
1 In the following extracts I make use of the translation of Henry Beveridge, with a few slight changes.
§ 91. CALVIN AND SADOLET. 403
" I profess to be one of those whom, with so much enmity, you assail and stigmatize. For though religion was already established, and the form of the Church corrected, before I was invited to Geneva, yet having not only approved by my suffrage, but studied as much as in me lay to preserve and confirm what had been done by Viret and Farel, I cannot separate my case from theirs. Still, if you had attacked me in my private character, I could easily have forgiven the attack in consideration of your learning, and in honor of letters. But when I see that my ministry, which I feel assured is supported and sanctioned by a call from God, is wounded through my side, it would be perfidy, not patience, were I here to be silent and connive.
"In that Church I have held the office, first of Doctor, and then of Pastor. In my own right I maintain that, in undertaking these offices, I had a legitimate vocation. How faithfully and religiously I have performed them, there is no occasion for now showing at length. Perspicuity, erudition, prudence, ability, or even industry, I will not claim for myself, but that I certainly labored with the sincerity which became me in the work of the Lord, I can in conscience appeal to Christ, my Judge, and all his angels, while all good men bear clear testimony in my favor. This ministry, therefore, when it shall appear to have been of God (as it certainly shall appear after the cause has been heard), were I in silence to allow you to tear and defame, who would not condemn such silence as treachery ? Every person, therefore, now sees that the strongest obligations of duty — obligations which I cannot evade — constrain me to meet your accusations, if I would not with manifest perfidy desert and betray a cause with which the Lord has intrusted me. For though I am for the present relieved of the charge of the Church of Geneva, that circumstance ought not to prevent me from embracing it with paternal affection — God, when he gave it to me in charge, having bound me to be faithful forever."
He repels with modest dignity the frivolous charge of having embraced the cause of the Reformation from disappointed ambition.
"I am unwilling to speak of myself, but since you do not permit me to be altogether silent, I will say what I can consistently with modesty. Had I wished to consult my own interest, I would never have left your party. I will not, indeed, boast that there the road to preferment had been easy to me. I never desired it, and I could never bring my mind to catch at it ; although I certainly know not a few of my own age who have crept up to some eminence — among them some whom I might have equalled, and others outstripped. This only I will be contented to say, it would not have been difficult for me to reach the summit of my wishes, viz., the enjoyment of literary ease with something of a free and honorable station. Therefore, I have no fear that any one not possessed of shameless effrontery will object to me, that out of the kingdom of the pope I sought for any personal advantage which was not there ready to my hand."