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

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but what is our present duty—yours and mine. If my life differs from my
teaching, then woe to me. God is my witness that my heart bleeds when I
think of your temptations and dangers, and that I cease not to pray with
tears that you may be delivered. Nor do I condemn always the persons
when I condemn the thing. I will not boast of superior courage, but it is not
my fault, if I am not more frequently in danger. I am not far from the shot
of the enemy. Secure to-day, I do not know what shall be to-morrow. I am
prepared for every event, and I hope that God will give me grace to glorify
him with my blood as well as with my tongue and pen. I shall lay down my
life with no more sadness than I now write down these words.”
The French Protestants were under the impression that Luther and
Melanchthon had milder and more practicable views on this subject, and
requested Calvin to proceed to Saxony for a personal conference. This he
declined from want of time, since it would take at least forty days for the
journey from Geneva to Wittenberg and back. Nor had he the means.
“Even in favorable seasons,” he wrote to an unknown friend in France, f891
“my income barely suffices to meet expenses, and from the scarcity with
which we had to struggle during the last two years, I was compelled to run
into debt.” He added that “the season was unfavorable for consulting
Luther, who has hardly had time to cool from the heat of controversy.” He
thus missed the only opportunity of a personal interview with Luther, who
died a year later. It is doubtful whether it would have been satisfactory.
The old hero was then discontented with the state of the world and the
Church, and longing for departure.
But Calvin prevailed on a young gentleman of tolerable learning to
undertake the journey for him. He gave him a literal Latin translation of his
tracts against the Nicodemites, together with letters to Luther and
Melanchthon (Jan. 20, 1545). He asked the latter to act as mediator
according to his best judgment. The letter to Luther is very respectful and
modest. After explaining the case, and requesting him to give it a cursory
examination and to return his opinion in a few words, Calvin thus
concludes this, his only, letter to the great German Reformer: —
“I am unwilling to give you this trouble in the midst of so many
weighty and various employments; but such is your sense of justice
that you cannot suppose me to have done this unless compelled by
the necessity of the case; I therefore trust that you will pardon me.
Would that I could fly to you, that I might even for a few hours