§ 110. GENEVA REGENERATED. ' 523
the best influence in South Carolina came from the' Calvinists of France. William Penn was the disciple of the Huguenots; the ships from Holland that first brought colonists to Manhattan were filled with Calvinists. Ho that will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American liberty.
"If personal considerations chiefly win applause, then no one merits our sympathy and our admiration more than Calvin ; tiie young exile from Francewho achieved an immortality of fame before he was twenty-eight years of age; now boldly reasoning with the king of France for religious liherty ; now venturing as the apostle of truth to carry the new doctrines into the heart of Italy, and hardly escaping from the fury of papal persecution ; tlie purest writer, tlie keenest dialectician of his century ; pushing free inquiry to its utmost verge, and yet valuing inquiry solely as the means of arriving at fixed conclusions. The light of his genius scattered the mask of darkness which superstition had held for centurief* before the brow of religion. His probity was unquestioned, his morals spotless. His only happiness consisted in his ' task of glory and of good ' ; for sorrow found its way into all his private relations. He was an exile from his country ; he became for a season an exile from his place of exile. As a husband he was doomed to mourn the premature loss of his wife ; as a father he felt the bitter pang of burying his only child. Alone in the world, alone in a strange land, he went forward in his career with serene resignation and inflexible firmness ; no love of ease turned him aside from his vigils; no fear of danger relaxed the nerve of his eloquence ; no bodily infirmities checked the incredible activity of his mind ; and so he continued, year after year, solitary and feeble, yet toiling for humanity, till after a life of glory, he bequeathed to his personal heirs, a fortune, in books and furniture, stocks and money, not exceeding two hundred dollars, and to the world, a purer reformation, a republican spirit in religion, with the kindred principles of republican liberty."
CHAPTER XIV.
CALVIN'S THEOLOGY. § 111. Calvhi's Commentaries.
I. Calvin's Commentaries on the Old Test, in Opera, vols. XXIII. -XLIV.,
on the New Test., vols. XLV. sqq. (not j'et completed). Separate Latin ed. of the Commentaries on the New Test, by Tholuck, Berlin, and Halle, 1831, 1836, etc., 7 vols. ; also on Genesis (by Hengstenberg, Berlin, 1838) and on the Psalms (by Tholuok, 1836, 2 vols.). Translations in French (by J. Girard, 1550, and others), English (by various writers, 1570 sqq.), and other languages. Best English ed. by the " Calvin Translation Soc," Edinburgh, 1843-55 (30 vols, for the O. T., 13 for the N. T.). See list in Darling's Ci/clopcedia Bihliographica, sub "Calvin."
II. A. Tholuck : Die Verdienste Calvin's als Schriftaushger, in his " Lit. Anzeiger," 1831, reprinted in his " Vermischte Schrif ten " (Hamburg, 1839), vol. II. 330-360, and translated by Wm. Pringle (added to Com. on Joshua in the Edinb. ed. 1854, pp. 345-375). — G. W. Meyer: Geschichte der Schrifterklarung, 11.448-475. — D. G. Escher: De Calvino interprete, Traj., 1840. — Ed. Reuss: Calvin conside're comme exegete, in "Revue," VI. 223. — A. Vesson: Calvin exegete, Montaub, 1855. — E. Stahelin: Calvin, I. 182-198. — Schaff : Creeds of Christendom, I. 457-460. — Merx : Joel, Halle, 1879, pp. 428-444. — Fred. W. Farrar : History of Interpretation (London, 1886), pp. 342-354.
Calvin was an exegetical genius of the first order. His commentaries are unsurpassed for originality, depth, perspicuity, soundness, and permanent value. The Reformation period was fruitful beyond any other in translations and expositions of the Scripture. If Luther was the king of translators, Calvin was the king of commentators. Poole, in the preface to his Si/nopsis, apologizes for not referring more frequently to Calvin, because others had so largely borrowed from him that to quote them was to quote him. Reuss, the chief editor of his works and himself an eminent biblical scholar, says that Calvin was "beyond all question the great-