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

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as the Bernese Council condemned Huber for misrepresenting Beza and
Calvinism generally.
Beza had left Geneva with a heavy heart because his faithful and beloved
wife had just died, and when he returned, found public matters in a critical
condition. The magistrates had felt themselves compelled by the condition
of the city treasury to economize as much as possible, and had dismissed
two of the professors in the Academy, and contemplated other
retrenchments. Beza knew that these extreme measures would probably
greatly cripple the institution, and so, old as he was, and failing, he
undertook to give a full course of instruction in theology, and persisted
with it for more than two years,—until the crisis was passed,—and for
these extra duties he would not take any compensation.
§ 174. BEZA AND HENRY IV.
In the course of his long life Beza had few joys, aside from the abiding one
of his religion, and many sorrows. His heart was bound up with the
fortunes of the Reformed Church in France, and they were usually bad.
Still he took courage every time a little improvement was noticeable. Much
hope had he cherished in consequence of the accession of Henry of
Navarre (1589), because he was a Protestant. But early in the summer of
1593, the news reached Geneva that the king, upon whom religion and
morality sat very lightly, in the interests of peace and national prosperity,
was determined to abjure the Protestant faith. Alas for all their hopes!
Beza was greatly moved, and addressed the monarch a letter in which he
set forth the eternal consequences of the change the king was about to
make. f1305 He felt assured, however, that Henry would be delivered from
the machinations of his and their enemies, and not take the fatal step. But
ere Beza’s letter reached him the deed was done. In the ancient abbey
church at St. Denis on the morning of Sunday, July 25, 1593, King Henry
of Navarre, the son of Jeanne d’Albret, the only Huguenot who ever sat
upon the throne of France, abjured his faith, and took a solemn oath to
protect the Roman Catholic, and Apostolic religion.
Beza was deeply grieved at this apostasy. But when he learned that the
king favored his old co-religionists in many ways, and especially, when in
1598, he published the Edict of Nantes, which put the Protestants on a
nearly common footing with the Roman Catholics in France, Beza took a
more hopeful view of the king’s condition. In 1599 the king, in the course