LEFEVRE D'ETAPLES, 1455-1537, commonly called FABER STAPULENSIS. He began his literary career with translations. His version of the Vulgate was prohibited by the Parliament of Paris in 1525, and was therefore printed at Antwerp. "The French Bible of Louvain, which is that of FABER, revised by the command of Charles V, appeared as a new translation in 1550."

He bears a high character among contemporary critics for his theological and his philosophical writings, but his dread of leaving his mother Church lessened his literary influence among reformed circles. His appeal To the Christian Readers of Meaux, shows the spirit of his mind.

And why should we not wish to see our century brought back to the image of the primitive Church, because then Christ was receiving purer homage, and the glory of His name was more widely spread?

May this extension of the Faith, may this purity of the cult, now that the light of the Gospel reappears, be accorded to us by the One who is blessed above all others.

In WILLIAM FAREL, 1489-1565, the reformed doctrine found an advocate who led an organised band of missioners to devote themselves to the evangelisation of western or French-speaking Switzerland. He was the author of The True Cross of Jesus Christ, and of Thirteen Theses which he defended in a public discussion in Basel, 1524; but his lasting glory is the fact that under his persuasion JOHN CALVIN made his home in Geneva.

The spread of the Reformation was materially helped by colporteurs in France who carried their books in a pack on their backs and hawked them in villages and towns. Many were seized and thus their titles are known. They include The Colloquies of ERASMUS, The Fountain of Life (selected passages of Scripture in French), The Book of True and

Perfect Prayer (selections from the works of LUTHER), The Catechism of Geneva, Ecclesiastical Prayers with the Manner of Administering the Sacraments, A Christian Alphabet, and A Christian Instruction.3

Against such works as these CARDINAL CARRERO issued the warning "It is specially needful to have a care of these little books. They are like a charm thrown by an enemy who is unable to harm by the spoken word."

The influence of all such works was however immeasurably surpassed by the great text book of Protestant theology, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1535, written by JOHN CALVIN, 1509-1561. CALVIN had already proved his scholarship and his moral temper in a Commentary on The Clemency of Seneca, 1532. His wide and minute knowledge of Greek and Latin classical authors shows to advantage in his notes, and his plea for tolerance is made "in language as lofty as Milton employed in his Areopagitica.' He had also shown his interest in matters theological in a famous treatise entitled Psychopannychia, 1534, "which he levelled against those who taught the sleep of souls until the day of judgment," and in which he maintained "that the souls of the elect go immediately to heaven and the souls of the reprobate to hell."

During his stay in Paris CALVIN had written the Rectorial Address for Nicholas Cop in 1533. His subject was Christian Philosophy, with Matthew v.3, as the text. "The discourse was an eloquent defence of Evangelical truth . . . When the people discovered that Calvin was the real author he had to flee from Paris and eventually found refuge in Basel, 1535, where he finished his Institutes of the Christian Religion."

The Institutes is a work of 'monumental severity,' with no aesthetic beauty to adorn its rigid logic; but the clarity

3 T. M. Lindsay, History of the Reformation, Vol. II., p. 152. * Ibid., Vol. II., pp. 98, 99.

of its thought, the definiteness of its language, and the depth and range of its vision make it one of the greatest presentations of Evangelical teaching ever given to the world. It is the first work of its order written in French prose, and it has been one of the most powerful forces in human history.

It was originally designed to show that the Reformers were not Anabaptists. In a prefatory letter of protest against the persecution of Protestants in Paris that took place in October, 1534, CALVIN describes his purpose in writing the Institutes:

First that I might vindicate from unjust affront my brethren whose death was precious in the sight of the Lord, and next, that some sorrow and anxiety should move foreign peoples since the same sufferings threatened many.

In the dedication To His Most Gracious Majesty, Francis, King of France, and his sovereign, he says:

I exhibit my confesstion to you that you may know the nature of that doctrine which is the object of such unbounded rage to those madmen who are now disturbing your kingdom with fire and sword. For I shall not be afraid to acknowledge that this treatise contains a summary of that very doctrine which, according to their clamours, deserves to be punished with imprisonment, banishment, proscription, and flames, and to be exterminated from the face of the earth.

CALVIN took the Apostles Creed . . . . "and proceeded to show that when tested by this standard the Protestants were truer Catholics than the Romanists . . .

"For the Institutes is an expansion and exposition of the Apostles' Creed, and of the four sentences which it explains." It contains six chapters: i. The Law. (i.e. the Ten Commandments); ii. The Faith (i.e. the Apostles' Creed); iii.

Prayer; iv. The Sacraments; v. False Sacraments; vi. Christian Liberty. The first edition in Latin was printed in 1535 and published in 1536. It was much enlarged and improved in the later editions of 1539 and 1559, and also in the French edition of 1541.

During his establishment in Geneva, 1536-1539, CALVIN wrote some less important works-Flight from the Religion of the Impious, The Overthrow of the Papal Power, and a condensed summary of the Institutes, entitled The Instruction and Confession of Faith for the Use of the Church of Geneva, 1537. His exile in Strassburg, 1539-1541, gave him leisure to revise the Institutes, to write a Commentary on Romans, and to issue a Tract on the Lord's Supper. After his reinstatement in Geneva, 1541, he issued A Confession of Faith, which was a simpler work than the earlier Instruction. He controverted the romanist ALBERT PIGHIUS in a work on Free Will, and therewith secured his conversion to the reformed doctrine. After the death of MICHAEL SERVETUS, 1511-1553, for heresy, CALVIN issued A Faithful Exposition of the Errors of Servetus, and an Apology for the Punishment of Heretics by the Civil Magistrate, 1554.

The Spanish physician SERVETUS gave himself with eager zest to theological enquiry, and although outwardly a conforming Catholic, was a speculative unitarian and an Anabaptist. His crude but original Seven Books on the Errors of the Trinity, 1531, and the Two Books of Dialogues concerning the Trinity, 1532, were read and highly praised by many of his contemporaries. During 1545 or 1546 he engaged in a perilous correspondence with CALVIN on matters theological, and in 1553 he issued his fatal Restoration of Christianity, which brought him to the stake as a blasphemer.

A reply to CALVIN'S Exposition of the Errors of Servetus, was issued under the assumed editorship of MARTIN BELLAY.

An answer to the Apology for the Punishment of Heretics was published by THEODORE BEZA, 1519-1605, who however was sufficiently loyal to CALVIN to write his Life, and a work entitled Little Traits of M. Jean Chauvin.

In the Life he relates the story of FAREL'S call to CALVIN to settle in Geneva.

You have no other pretext for refusing me than the attachment which you declare you have for your studies. But I tell you, in the name of God Almighty, that if you do not share with me the holy work in which I am engaged he will not bless your plans, because you prefer your repose to Jesus Christ.

BEZA had a literary career independent of theological controversy. Between 1565 and 1600 he edited no less than ten translations of the New Testament, and his talent for poetry led him to unite with CLEMENT MAROT, 1497-1544, in rendering the Psalms into French metre. The translations of MAROT were issued in 1541; they were the first to be published in France, and in the judgment of Hallam "are among his worst performances." Notwithstanding this, his version of Psalm 68 became the battle-song of the Huguenots.

In England the Reformation of the Church coincided with the domestic difficulties of KING HENRY VIII, 1491-1547. HENRY won the title of "Defender of the Faith," 1521, by his book entitled The Seven Sacraments against M. Luther, to which LUTHER made answer in Luther's Answer to the Abusive Epistle of the King of England, 1527. The king's final repudiation of papal jurisdiction was less an assertion of doctrinal independence than one of national autonomy in church government.

THOMAS CRANMER, 1489-1556, was "the first Protestant Archbishop of this kingdom, and the greatest instrument under God, of the happy Reformation of this Church of Literature of Europe, Vol. I., pp. 418, 419.