Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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Calvin’s system of doctrine agrees with the (ecumenical creeds in theology
and Christology; with Augustinianism in anthropology and soteriology, but
dissents from the mediaeval tradition in ecclesiology, sacramentology, and
eschatology. We shall discuss the prominent features of this system in the
chapter on Calvin’s Theology.
The Institutio was dedicated to King Francis I. of France (1494–1547),
who at that time cruelly persecuted his Protestant subjects. As Justin
Martyr and other early Apologists addressed the Roman emperors in behalf
of the despised and persecuted sect of the Christians, vindicating them
against the foul charges of atheism, immorality, and hostility to Caesar, and
pleading for toleration, so Calvin appealed to the French monarch in
defence of his Protestant countrymen, then a small sect, as much despised,
calumniated, and persecuted, and as moral and innocent as the Christians in
the old Roman empire, with a manly dignity, frankness, and pathos never
surpassed before or since. He followed the example set by Zwingli who
addressed his dying confession of faith to the same sovereign (1531).
These appeals, like the apologies of the ante-Nicene age, failed to reach or
to affect the throne, but they moulded public opinion which is mightier than
thrones, and they are a living force to-day.
The preface to the Institutio is reckoned among the three immortal
prefaces in literature. The other two are President De Thou’s preface to his
History of France, and Casaubon’s preface to Polybius. Calvin’s preface is
superior to them in importance and interest. Take the beginning and the
close as specimens. f459
“When I began this work, Sire, nothing was farther from my
thoughts than writing a book which would afterwards be presented
to your Majesty. My intention was only to lay down some
elementary principles, by which inquirers on the subject of religion
might be instructed in the nature of true piety. And this labor I
undertook chiefly for my countrymen, the French, of whom I
apprehend multitudes to be hungering and thirsting after Christ, but
saw very few possessing any real knowledge of him. That this was
my design the book itself proves by its simple method and
unadorned composition. But when I perceived that the fury of
certain wicked men in your kingdom had grown to such a height, as
to have no room in the land for sound doctrine, I thought I should
be usefully employed, if in the same work I delivered my