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

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men. Congregations appealed to him for preachers; princes and noblemen
for decisive counsel in political complications; those in doubt for
instruction; the persecuted for protection; the martyrs for exhortation and
encouragement in cheerful suffering and dying. And as the eye of a father
watches over his children, Calvin watched with untiring care of love over
all these relations in their manifold ramifications, and sought to be the same
to the great community of his brethren in France what he was to the little
Republic at home.” f1230
Roman Catholic writers have made Calvin responsible for the civil wars in
France, as they have made Luther responsible for the Peasants’ War and
the Thirty Years’ War. But the Reformers preached reformation by the
word and the spirit, not revolution by the sword. The chief cause of the
religious wars in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the
intolerance of the papacy. Bossuet charges Calvin with complicity in the
conspiracy of Amboise, which was a political coup d’état to check the
power of the Guises (1560). Calvin was indeed informed of the plot, but
warned against it, first privately, then publicly, and predicted its disastrous
failure. He constantly upheld the principle of obedience to the rightful
magistrate, and opposed violent measures. “The first drop of blood,” he
said, “which we shed will cause streams of blood to flow. Let us rather a
hundred times perish than bring such disgrace upon the name of
Christianity and the cause of the gospel.” f1231 Afterwards when a war in
self-defence was inevitable, he reluctantly gave his consent, but protested
against all excesses. f1232
Calvin did not live to weep over the terrible massacre of St.
Bartholomew’s day, nor to rejoice over the Edict of Nantes; but his spirit
accompanied “the Church of the Desert,” whose motto was the burning
bush (Ex. 3:2); and every Huguenot who left France for the sake of his
faith, carried to his new home in Switzerland, or Brandenburg, or Holland,
or England, or America, a profound reverence for the name of John Calvin.
CALVIN AND THE WALDENSES.
The Waldenses are the only mediaeval sect which survives to this day,
because they progressed with the Reformation and adhered to the Bible as
their rule of faith. f1233 They sent a deputation of two of their pastors, in
1530, to Oecolampadius at Basel, Bucer and Capito at Strassburg, and
Berthold Haller at Bern, for information concerning the principles of the