§ 99. Calvin'' s Idea of the Holy Catholic Church.
During his sojourn at Strassburg, Calvin matured his views on the Church and the Sacraments, and embodied them
§ 09. Calvin's idea ov the holy catholic church. 449
in the fourth book of the .second edition of his Iiisliiulcs, whieh appeared in the same year as his Coninientaiy on the Epistle to the Romans (15-J9). His ideal was high and comprehensive, far beyond what he was able to realize in the little district of (xeneva. *' In no respect, perhaps," says a distinguished Scotch Presl)yterian scholar,^ "are the In.stitutett more remarkable than in a certain comprehensiveness and cathoUclty of tone, which to many will appear strangely associated with his name. But Calvin was far too enlightened not to recognize the grandeur of the (Catholic idea which had descended through so many ages ; this idea had, in truth, for such a mind as his, special attractions, and his own system mainly sought to give to the same idea a new and higlier form. The narrowness and intolerance of his ecclesiastical rule did not so much spring out of tlie general principles laid down in the Institutes, as from his special interpretation and application of these principles.'"
AN'hen Paul was a prisoner in Rome, chained to a heathen soldier, and when Christianity was confined to a small band of humble believers scattered through a hostile world, he described to tlie Ephesians his sublime conception of the Church as the mystical " body of Christ, the fulness of Him who filleth all in all." Yet in the same and other epistles he finds it necessary to warn the members of this lioly l)rotlierhood even against such vulgar vices as theft, inteni[)erance, and fornication. The contradiction is only appai'ent, and disappears in the distinction between the ideal and the real, the essential and the phenomenal, the Churcli as it is in the mind of ( 'lirist and the Church as it is in the masses of nominal Christians.
The same apparent contradiction we find in Calvin, in Luther, and other Reformers. They cherished the deepest respect for the holy Catholic Church of Christ, and yet felt
1 Principal Tuiloch of tlu« University of St. Andrews, in Luther and other Leaders of the Jteformatiou, p. 203 (3(1 ed. 188.'}).
450 THE KEFORJMATION IX FKENCH SWITZERLAND.
it their duty to protest with all their might against the abuses and corruptions of the actual Church of their age, and especially against the papal hierarchy which ruled it with despotic power. We may go further back to the protest of the Hebrew Prophets against the corrupt priesthood. Christ himself, who recognized the divine economy of the history of Israel, and came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets, attacked with withering severity the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in Moses' seat, and was condemned by the high priest and the Jewish hierarchy to the death of the cross. These scriptural antecedents help very much to understand and to justify the course of the Reformers.
Nothing can be more truly Catholic than Calvin's description of the historic Church. It reminds one of the finest passages in St. Cyprian and St. Augustin. After explaining the meaning of the article of the Apostles' Creed on the holy Catholic Church, as embracing not only the visible Church, but all God's elect, living and departed, he thus speaks of the visible or historic Catholic Church c^ —
" As our present design is to treat of the risible Church, we may learn even from the title of mother, how useful and even necessary it is for us to know her; since there is no other way of entrance into life, unless we are conceived by her, born of her, nourished at her breast, and continually preserved under her care and government till we are divested of this mortal flesh and become 'like the angels ' (Matt. 22 : 30). For our infirmity will not admit of our dismission from her school ; we must continue under her instruction and discipline to the end of our lives. It is also to be remarked that out of her bosom there can be no hope of remission of sins, or any salvation, according to the testimony of Isaiah (37 : 32) and Joel (2 : 32) ; which is confirmed by Ezekiel (13: 9), when he denounces that those whom God excludes from the heavenly life shall not be enrolled among his people. So, on the contrary, those who devote themselves to the service of God are said to inscribe their names among the citizens of Jerusalem. For which reason the Psalmist says, ' Remember me, O Lord, with the favor that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation, that I may see the prosperity of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance' (Ps. 106:4, 5). In these words the paternal
" 1 Inst. IV. ch. I. § 4; comp. §§ 2 and 3.