Page:Institutes of the Christian Religion Vol 1.djvu/21

Rh affirmed, no man could be justified in believing it without an ocular inspection of this earlier first edition—an edition, however, which as yet is only a phantom of the brain, no trace of its actual existence having ever been discovered.

Besides, it is of importance to observe, that in the above passage quoted from the preface to the Psalms, Calvin, to prove that personal fame could not have been his object in publishing the Institutes at Basle, appeals to his early depart ure, after the publication, "patuit ex brevi discessu" Assuming, then, that there was an edition published previous to August 1535, what becomes of the "early departure?" If the fancied edition was published in June or July, the departure could not, in any proper sense of the term, be early, if it did not take place in the course of the same year. And yet, what is the fact? We find Calvin dating a preface to the Psychopannychia as still resident at Basle in 1536.

We are thus driven to the conclusion, that the edition of Basle, in 1536, is the first, and that there must therefore be either some inaccuracy in Calvin's statement, or some flaw in the argument which employs that statement to prove that the first edition did not contain the author's name on the title-page.

Even were the former alternative adopted, there would be nothing in it in the least degree derogatory to Calvin. The statement in the preface to the Psalms was made in 1557, twenty-one years after the publication of the Institutes. Would it be at all surprising, that after such a lapse of time, one whose whole life had been occupied with great thoughts and great transactions, should, through forgetfulness, have spoken inaccurately of what, after all, is merely a question of bibliography;—a question which, owing to his