# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 03 04_S106
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

106

ery sent to the same Melanchton, who however, for reasons easily guessed, did not deliver it, but sent it back to Geneva, where it has been preserved in the library there. We find this letter published in the well-known "Sammlungen von alten und neuen theologischen Sachen, Urkunden etc." Leipzig, volume of 1722, pages 626 — 628. But let no one suppose that Calvin wrote to Luther because the two stood in a friendly correspondence, or because Calvin wished to draw near to Luther. Rather, Calvin relates at the beginning of his letter that he had been constrained to it by others, and that a certain embarrassment had driven him to it, namely that certain Frenchmen would not let themselves be directed by him in an important matter, appealing to Luther. He then continues thus: "Moreover, since they (the Frenchmen) are irresolute and in doubt, they desire to hear your judgment, which, as they rightly esteem it highly, will serve them for great confirmation. They have therefore asked me to send a special, safe messenger to you, who might bring back to us your answer upon this matter. But I, since I not only held that it was of the highest importance for them to be supported by your authority, that they might not always waver, but because it was also most desirable to myself, did not wish to refuse them what they asked. Therefore I beg you, most honored Father in the LORD, earnestly through Christ, that you be willing not to feel burdened, to overcome your disgust for my sake and theirs, and first to run over in leisure hours, as if for pastime, the letter written in their name, and my little books 2), or to commit the reading to someone who may report to you the whole contents, and then to write us your opinion in few words. I do it indeed unwillingly, that I should cause you this trouble amid such weighty and manifold affairs, but since I do it only under constraint, I hold myself assured that you will, according to your fairness, let pardon be granted me."
2) These little books treated the matter about which the disagreement between Calvin and those Frenchmen had arisen.

From this the reader sees what disposition Calvin presupposed in Luther toward himself: not, as the "Friedensbote" reports, affection and favor, but "disgust," the highest aversion and such a contempt for his writings that he would hardly deem them worthy of being looked through.

Still more light falls upon the relation in which these men then stood to one another, if we also take the letter of Calvin of January 16, 1545, to Melanchton, by which the above letter to be delivered to Luther was accompanied. The same is found in the collection of Calvin's letters arranged by Beza and published in the year 1576 at Lausanne (No. 60.). Therein it says among other things thus: "Since the matter seems difficult to them" (the Frenchmen), "they are still in doubt and irresolute as to what they shall do, until they are strengthened by your and Luther's authority. And indeed I fear that they wish to ask counsel of you for this reason, because they hope that you will be milder toward them. You see how confidentially I deal with you; yet I fear not to exceed the measure, for I know how much I may allow myself toward you according to your particular goodwill. As to Dr. Martin" (Luther, namely) "there will be somewhat more difficulty; for as far as I have been able to gather from a rumor and from the letters of some, the scarcely soothed mind of the man might for a slight cause be provoked and exasperated again (exulcerari). Therefore the messenger will show you the letter which I have written to the same," (Luther), "that you may read it and govern the whole matter according to your discretion; that nothing be attempted perversely and inconsiderately which might afterwards turn out unhappily, you will take care of that; and I know that you will do this well, according to your so great skill." From this it appears as clear as the sun that Calvin turned to Luther only with trepidation, because those Frenchmen had constrained him to it, and that he feared that even his letter, written in a tone of high reverence, might easily stir up anew the wrath of Luther, who had scarcely become a little quiet. Calvin is so timid that he does not even dare to appear before Luther directly with such a letter, but leaves it to the shrewd calculation of Melanchthon whether by the delivery of the letter the evil might not easily be made only worse.

That Calvin furthermore counted himself also among those against whom Luther wrote in his "Confession on the Lord's Supper" of the year 1544 is, according to a letter of Calvin to Bullinger in Zürich of November 25 of that year, so entirely beyond doubt that only ignorance or wantonness can deny it. Thus Calvin writes namely in that letter (it is the 57th in the cited collection): "I hear that Luther has at last broken out with grim invectives, not so much against you" (Swiss, Zwinglians), "as against us all. Now I scarcely dare to ask you to keep silence; because it is unjust to suffer such evil treatment undeservedly and not to be permitted to justify oneself, and it is hard to determine whether this would be profitable. But this, I beg, be pleased to lay to heart, first, what a great man Luther is, and by what great gifts he distinguishes himself, with what courage, with what steadfastness, with what skill, with what penetrating power of teaching he has hitherto been diligent to overthrow the kingdom of Antichrist and at the same time to spread the doctrine of salvation. I am wont often to say: if he should even call me a devil, I would yet show him so much honor as to acknowledge him as an eminent servant of God, who nevertheless, as he is rich in excellent virtues, so suffers from great faults." —

How Calvin was finally disposed, later, concerning the Augsburg Confession, after it was no longer in his interest to wrap himself in it with inward reluctance, 3) is clearly evident from a remark which Calvin made when Catharine de Medici (the guardian of King Charles IX.) in 1561 demanded of the Reformed in France the acceptance and subscription of the Augsburg Confession, so that ever more sects might not arise. The Papists were highly enraged at this, since they foresaw of what incomparable advantage such a union of the Lutherans and Reformed on the basis of the Augsb. Conf. would be for Protestantism; wherefore the Papist Canisius expressed himself about it in a letter of January 29, 1562, to Cardinal Hosius, who was at the Council of Trent, as follows: "Some believe that the devil strives, through French subtlety, to bring it about that from Calvinism and Lutheranism One Corpus Doctrinae (One System of Doctrine) may arise." [Compare Cyprian's Unterricht von kirchl. Verein. der Protest., p. 232.] How did Calvin express himself on the other hand in this matter? He wrote on September 10, 1561, to Beza at Poissy, where the latter then was staying to hold a colloquy with the Papists, among other things the following: "The Augsburg Confession is, as you know, the torch of your fury for the kindling of a fire which is to set all France in flames and consume it. But it is well to examine for what purpose it is to be forced upon them, since its mildness always displeases the upright and the author of it himself regrets it, and it is in most places adapted to the particular need of Germany. I say nothing of the fact that its brevity is as obscure, "(aha!)," as it is mutilated by the omission of several chief articles of the greatest importance. Moreover, it would be absurd to set aside the French Confession and to adopt that one. Yes, in this way matter for the future would
3) After Calvin had been driven out of Geneva in 1538, he turned to Strasburg, and here, in order to obtain a theological professorship and the pastorate at the newly founded French congregation of that place, he had to subscribe to the Augsburg Confession. He did it in the year 1539, as he himself later, in 1557, confessed in a letter (Epist. 236) to Martin Schalling, preacher at Regensburg, where he writes thus: "Yet I do not reject the Augsburg Confession either, which I formerly subscribed willingly and gladly, as its author himself has explained it." The last words indeed show that Calvin did not proceed honestly in his subscription, but employed with it a Jesuitical secret reservation. Moreover, from this subscription it is explained why Calvin earlier deceived even faithful Lutherans also and passed for an evangelical theologian, to which the "Friedensbote" so often appeals.