Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/388

 last; since without it there will be no end to superstition and the conscience will enter a long and inextricable labyrinth whence escape will be difficult. The Church is the elect people of God, and must, if it is to do its work in the world, obey Him. But it can obey only as it has control over its own destinies and authority over its own members. It will not err in matters of opinion if it is guided by the Holy Spirit and judges according to the Scriptures. Magistrates are ordained of God, and ought to be obeyed, even though wicked; but here a most significant exception is introduced. God is King of Kings; when He opens His mouth, He alone is to be heard; it were worse than foolish to seek to please men by offending Him. We are subject to our rulers, but only in Him; if they command what He has forbidden, we must fear God and disobey the King.

The Institutio bears the date "Mense Martio; Anno 1536"; but Calvin, without waiting till his book was on the market, made a hurried journey to Ferrara, whose Duchess, Renée, a daughter of Louis XII, stood in active sympathy with the Reformers. The reasons for this brief visit are very obscure; but it may have been undertaken in the hope of mitigating by the help of Renée the severity of the persecutions in France. On his return Calvin ventured, tradition says, to Noyon, probably for the sake of family affairs; but he certainly reached Paris; and, while in the second half of July making his way into Germany, he arrived at Geneva. An old friend, possibly Louis du Tillet, discovered him, and told Farel; and Farel, in sore straits for a helper, besought him, and indeed in the name of the Almighty commanded him, to stay. Calvin was reluctant, for he was reserved and shy, and conceived his vocation to be the scholar's rather than the preacher's; but the entreaties of Farel, half tearful, half minatory, prevailed. And thus Calvin's connexion with Geneva began.

With the ancient and medieval history of Geneva we have here no concern; it will be enough if we briefly indicate those peculiarities of its constitution which gave Calvin his opportunity, and so much of its history as will explain the condition in which he found it.

Ethnographically Geneva was connected with both the Teutonic and the Latin races; by language it was French, by religious interests and associations Italian, by political instincts and affinities Swiss, by commercial and industrial genius German. In the thirteenth century its civil superior had been a Count of Burgundy; in the fifteenth century and early sixteenth he had been long superseded by the Dukes of Savoy. And the supersession was inevitable, for Geneva occupied a corner of the Savoyard country; and, as an old chronicler has it, the bells of the city were heard by more Savoyards than citizens. Its constitution, at once hierarchical, feudal, and democratic, so balanced parties, whose interests were seldom compatible, as to put a premium on agitation and