by Frank Viola
18. Historians disagree over how much influence Calvin had in Geneva. Some believe he had enormous influence on everything that went on in the city from 1542 until his death. One historian put it this way:
To get a glimpse of Calvin’s influence on political thinking in his own day, we must turn first of all to the city of Geneva, in which he lived. He undoubtedly wielded considerable influence on the codification of Geneva’s laws, as he was the secretary of the committee appointed to put the laws into a proper form. During the years following 1542, when the laws were codified, he also exerted no little personal influence on the governing bodies of the city. (Christian History 4, no. 4: 30)
Others believe he didn’t have great influence there. According to one source,
[Calvin] had become close friends with leading Reformers like Martin Bucer and Philip Melanchthon. He was asked to return to Geneva by city authorities, and he spent the rest of his life trying to help establish a theocratic society. . . .
He was in no way the ruler or dictator of Geneva. He was appointed by the city council and paid by them. He could at any time have been dismissed by them (as he had been in 1538). He was a foreigner in Geneva, not even a naturalized citizen, until near the end of his life. His was a moral authority, stemming from his belief that, because he proclaimed the message of the Bible, he was God’s ambassador, with divine authority behind him. As such, he was involved in much that went on in Geneva, from the city constitution to drains and heating appliances.” (Quoted in “John Calvin, Father of the Reformed Faith,” Christian History at ChristianityToday.com, https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/theologians/john-calvin.html)
See also Alister E. McGrath, A Life of John Calvin: A Study in the Shaping of Western Culture (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 1993), 109. Either way, Calvin had influence in Geneva. That doesn’t mean that everything that happened there can be laid at his feet. Nor does it mean that he had no role to play at all.
19. James Harvey Robinson, Readings in European History, vol. 2 (Boston: Ginn, 1906), 134.
20. Durant, Reformation, 473.
21. Durant, Reformation.
22. Durant, Reformation.
23. Durant, Reformation, 474.
24. Durant, Reformation.
25. Durant, Reformation.
26. Durant, Reformation.
27. Durant, Reformation. Note that “Claude” refers to Saint Claude. There was a Shrine to this saint in the area. The authorities had this name-rule to usher in the complete rejection of Romanism and promote Reformation.
28. Durant, Reformation.
29. Charles Beard, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, 2nd ed. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1885), 250.
30. Durant, Reformation.
31. Durant, Reformation.
32. Durant, Reformation.
33. Durant, Reformation, 476. Some sources say it was “two of Calvin’s own female relatives.” Preserved Smith, The Age of Reformation (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920), 173–74. Another source says, “In 1562, his step-daughter, Judith, fell into similar disgrace—a matter which Calvin felt so keenly that he left the city to seek the solitude of the country for a few days after the misdeed became public knowledge.” Williston Walker, John Calvin (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), 358. And another states,
Although Calvin was thus ceaselessly busy in supervising the morals of the citizens of Geneva, he found to his chagrin that neither his example nor his vigilance could secure the good behaviour of his own household. Antoine Calvin and his wife lived in the same house with the Reformer, and Antoine’s wife was unsatisfactory. The charge of immoral conduct which was brought against her in 1548 was dismissed as not proven, but in January, 1557, she was caught in the act of adultery with Calvin’s hunchback servant, Pierre Daguet, under Calvin’s own roof. On the 14th Calvin appeared before the Consistory on behalf of his brother and asked for divorce. The court was slow to move, and on 6 February Calvin wrote to Farel: “We are almost overwhelmed by domestic troubles. The judges do not see a reason for releasing my brother. I think their blindness is a just punishment for ours, for during two whole years I was being robbed by that thief and I saw nothing. But if judgment is not given soon, we mean to bring the matter to an issue in another way.” (Hugh Young Reyburn, John Calvin [New York: Hodder and Stroughton, 1914], 210)
34. Durant, Reformation, 473.
35. Durant, Reformation, 476. That there was a “high percentage” of these events is disputed by some.
36. John Hubbird, “Calvin’s Geneva—An Experiment in Christian Theocracy” at radicalresurgence.com/calvinsgeneva. See also Harro Hopfl, The Church Polity of John Calvin (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 136. For more information on Calvin’s Geneva, see Obie Ephyhm, “Calvin’s Geneva—Applied Critical Thinking” at radicalresurgence.com/calvinsgenevaapplied.
37. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Daniel, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1852), 185. Some believe that Calvin was speaking about Jewish biblical interpretation rather than an all-out inclusive remark about all Jews. You can make up your own mind.
38. Jeremy Cohen, ed., Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict, From Late Antiquity to the Reformation (New York: New York University Press, 1991), 381. The chapter is by Salo W. Baron, “John Calvin and the Jews,” 380–400.
39. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.21.5; vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1863), 206. The Battles translation states it a bit differently: “For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death.” It should be noted that some Calvinists reject the type of double predestination in which God deliberately creates a person for damnation apart from the fall of humanity. In a similar way, there is also debate within Reformed theology as to whether or not Calvin was an infralapsarian or a supralapsarian.
40. Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, 3.23.5.
Chapter 10 The Shocking Beliefs of Augustine
1. Richard N. Ostling, “The Second Founder of Our Faith,” Time, Sept. 29, 1986. The author of the article states, “Only a handful of thinkers have had equivalent influence over such a span of years. Yale historian Jaroslav Pelikan observes . . . that in each of the sixteen centuries since his conversion, Augustine has been a ‘major intellectual, spiritual and cultural force.’” Time magazine took this quote from Jaroslav Pelikan, The Mystery of Continuity: Time and History, Memory and Eternity in the Thought of Saint Augustine (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986), 140. Pelikan says, “There has, quite literally, been no century of the sixteen centuries since the conversion of Augustine in which he has not been a major intellectual, spiritual, and cultural force.” See also Christian History 6, no. 3: 2.
2. B. B. Warfield, “Augustine and His ‘Confessions,’” Princeton Theological Review, vol. 3 (Philadelphia: MacCalla & Co. Inc., 1905), 124, 126. Warfield writes, “It was equally he who by his doctrine of grace contributed the factor of positive doctrine by which the Reformation was rendered possible; for the Reformation on its theological and religious side was just an Augustinian revival. . . . For what was the Reformation inwardly considered, but the triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the Church?”
3. Will Durant, The Age of Faith (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950), 75.
4. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, vol. 1 (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 41.
5. Augustine, Sermons on the Old Testament (20–50), The Works of Saint Augustine (New York: New City Press, 1990), 2:240.
6. Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1876), 1.
7. This is a modernized version of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (NPNF), ed. Philip Schaff (New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1892). NPNF1, 12:50
4.
8. Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine, 3.5.9.
9. Augustine, Augustine: Later Works (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1955), 317.
10. Augustine, City of God, 21.8.2.
11. Augustine, The Works of Aurelius Augustine, vol. 9 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1883), 24.
12. Augustine, Confessions of Saint Augustine (New York: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1920), 20.
13. For a helpful overview of why Augustine was attracted to celibacy, see Veronica Arntz, “Pursuing Asceticism: St. Augustine & St. Anthony of Egypt,” Catholic Exchange, January 17, 2018, https://catholicexchange.com/pursuing-asceticism-st-augustine-st-anthony-egypt.
14. According to David G. Hunter, ed., Marriage and Sexuality in Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018), 32, Augustine made a distinction between two types of concupiscence. There was a proper type of sexual desire in marriage, and then there is a fleshly sinful sexual desire. Regardless, he did not disparage marriage. He believed it was honorable and permissible. For Augustine, marriage was a good thing. A position that radically differed from other theologians of his day (like Jerome and Ambrose) who viewed marriage as a negative aspect of the fall.
15. Against Faustus, book 15, 7, in NPNF1 4:216.
16. Christian History 6, no. 3: 26–28.
17. Augustine, Confessions, 11.3.
18. NPNF1 5:62. In this brief section, Augustine is discussing why children should be baptized. He says that through baptism, children are “freed from the serpent’s poisonous bite.”
19. NPNF1 5:404.
20. NPNF1 3:374–75.
21. Christian History 4, no. 3: 29.
22. Augustine, The Correction of the Donatists, 22–24; also see NPNF1 4:642.
23. NPNF1 I, 388.
24. NPNF1 I, 470.
25. On Forgiveness of Sins and Baptism, 1:34. in NPNF1 5:28. Note: the primitive apostolic tradition being spoken of was referring to the sacraments as “salvation” and “life.” Augustine went on to discuss the testimony of Scripture. Whatever Augustine meant by “impossible,” Schaff argues Augustine did not adhere to transubstantiation, but he rather held to some sort of “real spiritual participation.” NPNF1 1:388–99.
26. The Anti-Nicene Fathers (ANF), ed. Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Son, 1905), 3:246.
27. See chapter 10 of my book with George Barna, Pagan Christianity, for the history of Christian education.
28. NPNF1 5:475. For Augustine, some people are granted perseverance to the end (or elected to persevere to the end) while others are not.
Augustine wrote De correptione et gratia, where he explicitly rejects this conclusion and affirms the necessity of correction and rebuke for fallen believers. The first section of this treatise treats the efficacy of grace and the importance of discipline and admonition in the Christian life. The remaining portion of the work concerns the grace of perseverance and the consequent role of moral living of the believer. In Augustine’s own opinion, De correptione et gratia is his fullest and best expression of the gratuitous nature of God’s persevering one to the end. He argues here that a believer who loses his faith bears the sole blame for such a loss, but one who retains faith demonstrates the gift of persevering grace. He further argues that no one of the elect perishes—those who in life fall away are, and forever have been, part of the reprobate. On the other hand, if one of the elect were to fall away, God would necessarily insure that that person will eventually repent and return to the church. Augustine does not try to delve into the mysteries of why God grants perseverance to some and not to others, but rests upon Paul’s words, “Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33). The core teaching of this treatise, however, that one’s perseverance to the end is solely a work of grace by God, is vividly expressed throughout. It was to defend this understanding of the completely gratuitous nature of persevering grace that led Augustine to write his final work on perseverance, De dono perseverantiae. Henry Knapp, “Augustine and Owen on Preservation,” Westminster Theological Journal 62 (2000): 65–88.
29. Enchiridion of Faith, Hope, and Love, chapter 107 in NPNF1 vol. 3.
30. St. Augustine, Sermons on the Liturgical Seasons, The Fathers of the Church, vol. 38 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America, 1959), 10.
31. Luigi Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 224.
32. Of Holy Virginity, sec. 4; NPNF1 3:418.
33. Joseph Berington and John Kirk, The Faith of Catholics, vol. 1 (New York: Fr. Pustet & Co., 1909), 431.
34. William A. Jurgens, ed. and trans., The Faith of the Early Fathers (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1970 and 1979), 3:29.
35. Augustine, City of God, 21, 24, 2; NPNF1 2:470. In a footnote at this point in NPNF1 2 from Schaff: “This contains the germ of the doctrine of purgatory, which was afterwards more fully developed by Pope Gregory I, and adopted by the Roman church, but rejected by the Reformers as unfounded in Scripture, through Matt. Xii, 32, and I Cor. Iii. 15, are quoted in support of it.”
36. See Douglas Moo’s commentary on Romans in the New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT) for an excellent discussion on Romans 5:12 via Augustine et al. In Moo’s last point, he speaks of “corporate solidarity,” how the actions of certain individuals could have a “representative character” (Douglas Moo, The Letter to the Romans, NICNT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018], 327). So while Moo discusses the translation difficulties, he doesn’t appear to deny Augustine’s overall position.
37. Charles Finney, Lectures on Systematic Theology (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1878), 252.
38. Whitney Oates, Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, vol. 2, City of God (New York: Random House Publishers, 1948), 564–66. His words were, “If, therefore, the salamander lives in fire, as naturalists have recorded, and if certain famous mountains of Sicily have been continually on fire from the remotest antiquity until now, and yet remain entire, these are sufficiently convincing examples that everything which burns is not consumed. As the soul too, is a proof that not everything which can suffer pain can also die, why then do they yet demand that we produce real examples to prove that it is not incredible that the bodies of men condemned to everlasting punishment may retain their soul in the fire, may burn without being consumed, and may suffer without perishing?” (NPNF1 2:454).
39. Augustine, The Retractions (Washington, DC: The Catholic University Press of America, 1968), 169.
Chapter 11 The Shocking Beliefs of John Wesley
1. Christian History 11, no. 1: 4.
2. Wesley’s wife, Mary Vazeille (known as Molly), vehemently opposed her husband. For details, see Stephen Tomkins, John Wesley: A Biography (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 155–74; Nathan Busenitz, John Wesley’s Failed Marriage (published on The Cripple Gate website); Lillian Harvey, John Wesley and His Wife (Richmond, KY: Harvey Christian Publishers, n.d.).
3. C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, vol. 1 (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1899), 176.
4. J. C. Ryle, Christian Leaders of the Last Century (London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1869), 105.
5. Rev. L. Tyerman, The Life and Times of John Wesley, vol. 2 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1872), 363.
6. The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, vol. 5 (New York: Carlton & Phillips, 1853), 235. See also Christian History 2, no. 1: 4.
7. The Miscellaneous Works of Adam Clarke (Glasgow: R. Griffin and Co., 1836), 287–88; H. Newton Malony Jr., The Amazing John Wesley: An Unusual Look at an Uncommon Life (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2010), 12.
8. In John Wesley’s “Letter to a Roman Catholic,” Dublin, July 18, 1749, in John Wesley, Works of the Rev. John Wesley, vol. 10 (London: John Mason, City-Road, 1860), 81.
9. Malony Jr., Amazing John Wesley, 159.
10. John Wesley, Primitive Physick (Leeds: Web & Millington, 1846), 12.
11. Wesley, Prim
itive Physick, 9.
12. Malony Jr., Amazing John Wesley, 72–73. For his many cures, see Wesley, Primitive Physick.
13. Wesley, Primitive Physick, 9.
14. Wesley, Works of John Wesley, 3:247; “Advice to the People Called Methodists with Regard to Dress,” The Works of the Reverend John Wesley, vol. 6 (New York: Waugh and T. Mason, 1835), 546–47.
15. J. Parnell McCarter, “On Jewelry and Attire: ‘Put Off Thy Ornaments from Thee,’” Puritan News Weekly, April 6, 2004.
16. J. B. Galloway, A Study of Holiness from the Early Church Fathers (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014), 33.
17. John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, vol. 11 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1872), 485–86.
Chapter 12 The Shocking Beliefs of Charles Spurgeon
1. Christian History 10, no. 1: 2.
2. Spurgeon’s Fast Day Services, Held in the Sydenham Crystal Palace on October 7, 1857 (Melbourne: Smith Bookseller and Stationer, 1858). It is estimated that he preached to over ten million people throughout his life. This estimate appears to be from the calculations of Arthur Tappan Pierson. According to this author,