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 632 CALVIN the De dementia of Seneca, and it has been conjectured that his purpose was to move Francis I. to clemency, but it had little effect. Next came a bolder venture. Nicolas Cop, a friend of Calvin, just chosen rector of the Sor- bonne, delivered at the feast of All Saints an oration, supposed to have been written by Cal- vin, in which he discoursed upon the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The Sorbonne ordered the sermon to be burned, and Cop and Calvin were obliged to depart from Paris. He was welcomed at Nerac by Queen Margaret of Navarre, the sister of Francis I., and the refuge of the persecuted. In Angouleme, with his friend Louis de Tillet, Calvin distributed ser- mons among the people and began his " In- stitutes." The venerable Lefevre d'Etaples, whom he met at Nerac, at the court of Na- varre, in 1533, foretold that this young man would "restore the church of France." Re- turning to Paris at great personal risk, he ac- cepted a challenge of Servetus to discuss the positions advanced in his recent work De Trini- tatii rroribus, but Servetus failed to appear. In 1534 Calvin published at Orleans his P#y- chopannychia, in which he argued against a prevalent. Anabaptist tenet that the soul was in sleep between death and the resurrection. By the over-zealous dissemination of the re- formed "Placards," in 1535, persecution was again aroused. Calvin, desiring a quiet retreat for study, went to Strasburg, and thence to Basel, where Grynaaus and Wolfgang Capiton were working for the reform. Under the latter he studied Hebrew. The French and German reformers were now at work together. The reputation of Calvin as an earnest reformer and one of the most learned men of the age had preceded him. Not only his acumen and learning, but his unsurpassed systematic talents were now exhibited in the " Institutes of the Christian Religion," a work which caused Me- lanchthon to hail him as "the theologian," and which brought into one body of divinity the disjecta membra, of the reformed opinions, scat- tered throughout central and western Europe. The immediate occasion of the work was the charges circulated against the reformers, ac- cusing them as a body of holding the distorted opinions and insurrectionary projects with which one class of the Anabaptists had agita- ted Germany. Francis I. had lent his authority to the stigma. " Silence would now be trea- son," said Calvin. The Latin preface of the edition of 1536, addressed to this monarch, re- futes the charges and defends the reform with such dignity and method, that it takes rank as one of the three immortal prefaces in litera- ture ; that of President De Thou to his " His- tory," and of Casaubon to Polybius, being alone compared with it. The first edition of the "Institutes" was probably published in 1535, in French, and anonymously; no copy of it is extant. The edition of 1536 was issued at Basel, in Latin ; improved editions appeared during Calvin's life in 1543, 1545, 1549, 1550, and 1550. Numerous editions have been since published, and translations into most of the European languages, and into Greek and even Arabic. A new impression of the edition of 1759, which is considered the most complete, was brought out by Tholuck in Berlin, 1834-'5, and a new edition of Krnmmacher's German translation of the same appeared in 1834. It has been translated into English by Allen (Lon- don, 1813) and by Beveridge (Edinburgh, 1863). In its full form, the "Institutes" is divided into four books, treating successively of the knowledge of God as the Creator and Sover- eign of the world, of the knowledge of God as Redeemer in Christ, of participation in the grace of Christ and the fruits thereof, and of the external media (church and sacraments) by which God unites us unto, and retains us in, the fellowship of Christ. In it Calvin elabo- rates a system of theology, every part of which is based upon the idea that the divine will is supreme. That will, in Calvin's view, though hidden to us, is not arbitrary, but most wise and holy. The human race, corrupted radi- cally in the fall with Adam, has upon it the guilt and impotence of original sin ; its redemp- tion can be achieved only through an incarna- tion and a propitiation ; of this redemption only electing grace can make the soul a participant, and such grace once given is never lost ; this election can come only from God, and it in- cludes only a part of the race, the rest being left to perdition ; election and perdition are both predestinated in the divine plan; that plan is a decree, eternal and unchangeable ; all that is external and apparent is but the unfold- ing of this eternal plan; the church, "our mother," contains only the visible signs and I seals of a grace which is essentially invisible; i justification is by faith alone, and faith is the gift of God. Such was the stern anatomy of his system of predestination. The polemical astuteness and doctrinal completeness of the " Institutes " gave it an immediate fame. The reform, supposed to be sporadic, was here con- centrated in living unity and vigor. Less heed was given to the comparative neglect of human freedom than to the searching exposure of the vanity of human merit. The sovereignty of God was brought to bear against the supremacy of the pope. Rende de Franco, daughter of Louis XII., married to Ercole II., duke of Fer- rara, imitating the example as she shared the opinions of Margaret of Navarre, invited Cal- vin to her court, then the refuge of many of the persecuted. Under the name of Charles d'Espeville he here enjoyed for a short time comparative repose, yet winning Madame de Soubise, Anne and Jean de Parthenay, and others, to the new opinions. The vigilant in- quisition, already crushing out Italian reform, soon compelled him to retrace his steps. After tarrying a while at Aosta, he went for the last time to his native place, and arranged his fam- ily affairs. Prevented by the war in Lorraine from gaining Strasburg by the most direct