Volume I Part 35 (1/2)
Nine years after the publication of this very simple liturgy of Farel, appeared the first edition of the liturgy of Geneva, composed by Calvin, or the ”Prayers after the fas.h.i.+on of Geneva,”
as they were usually designated by contemporary Roman Catholic writers. Until recently the first edition was supposed to have been published in 1543, but Professor Felix Bovet, of Neufchatel, has been so fortunate as to find a copy in the Royal Library of Stuttgart, bearing the date of 1542. This is probably the solitary remaining specimen of the original impression.[727] Although without name of place, it was doubtless printed in Geneva. The t.i.tle is: ”_La Forme des Prieres et Chantz Ecclesiastiques, avec la Maniere d'administrer les Sacremens et consacrer le Marriage, selon la coustume de l'Eglise Ancienne. M.DXLII._”
The following brief sketch will perhaps convey a sufficient idea of the form ”which is ordinarily used” for the public wors.h.i.+p of the morning of the Lord's day.
A brief _invocation_ (”Our help be in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth”) is followed by an _exhortation_ addressed to the congregation (”My brethren, let each one of you present himself before the face of the Lord with confession of his faults and sins, following in his heart my words”). The _Confession_, which is the most beautiful and characteristic part of the liturgy, comes next.
Used by Theodore de Beze and his companions at the Colloquy of Poissy, with wonderful impressiveness, as preparatory to that reformer's grand vindication of the creed of the Protestants of France, it has been imagined by many that it was composed by him for this occasion. But it had already const.i.tuted a part of the public devotions of the French and Swiss Protestants for eighteen or twenty years. A _Psalm_ was then sung, and a prayer offered ”to implore G.o.d for the grace of His Holy Spirit, to the end that His Word may be faithfully expounded to the honor of His Name and the edification of the church, and may be received with such humility and obedience as are becoming.” The form is ”at the discretion of the minister.” After the sermon comes a longer prayer for all persons in authority; for Christian pastors; for the enlightenment of the ignorant and the edification of those who have been brought to the truth; for the comfort of the afflicted and distressed;[728]
closing with supplications for temporal and spiritual blessings in behalf of those present. The service was concluded by the form of benediction, Numbers, vi. 24-26.
Colladon, in his life of the reformer, tells us that Calvin ”collected (recueillit), for the use of the church of Geneva, the form of ecclesiastical prayers, with the manner of administering the sacraments and celebrating marriage, and a notice for the visitation of the sick, as they are now placed with the Psalms.”
(Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, vi., pp. xvii., xviii.) And Calvin himself, in his farewell address to his fellow-ministers (April 28, 1564), as taken down from memory by Pinaut, observed: ”As to the prayers for Sunday, I took the form of Strasbourg, and borrowed the greater part of it.” (Adieux de Calvin, Bonnet, Lettres francaises, ii. 578.) The Strasbourg liturgy to which Calvin here refers was one which he had himself composed for the use of the French refugee church of Strasbourg, when acting as its pastor, during his exile from Geneva (1538-1541). The earliest edition known to be extant is that of which a single copy exists in the collection of M. Gaiffe, and of which M. O. Douen has for the first time given an account in his ”Clement Marot et le Psautier huguenot,” Paris, 1878, i.
334-339. This Strasbourg liturgy of 1542 (the pseudo-_Roman_ edition already referred to, p. 275), like that of 1545 (which Professors Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss described in their edition of Calvin's works, vi. 174, 175), contains some striking variations from the Geneva forms. In particular, immediately after the ”Confession of Sins,” it inserts these words: ”Here the Minister recites some word of Scripture to comfort consciences, and then p.r.o.nounces the absolution as follows:
”Let each one of you recognize himself to be truly a sinner, humbling himself before G.o.d, and believe that our Heavenly Father will be gracious unto him in Jesus Christ.
”To all those who thus repent and seek Jesus Christ for their salvation, I declare the absolution of their sins, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
It was this Strasbourg liturgy of Calvin that was in the hands of the framers of the English ”Book of Common Prayer,” and from this they derived the introductory portion of the daily service.
”According to the first book of Edward VI., that service began with the Lord's Prayer. The foreign reformers consulted recommended the insertion of some preliminary forms; and hence the origin of the Sentences, the Exhortation, the Confession, and the Absolution.
These elements were borrowed, not from any ancient formulary, but from a ritual drawn up by Calvin for the church at Strasbourg.” (C.
W. Baird, Eutaxia, or the Presbyterian Liturgies: Historical Sketches, New York, 1855, p. 190.)
The origin of only one of the minor offices of the Geneva liturgy can be distinctly traced to another and older source. The form for the celebration of marriage is taken bodily from the ”Maniere et Fa.s.son” of Farel, with the omission of two or three unimportant sentences, and the alteration of a very few words--a trifling change, dictated in each case by Calvin's keener literary taste.
The form for baptism, Calvin tells us expressly, was somewhat roughly drafted by himself at Strasbourg, when the children of Anabaptists were brought to him for baptism from distances of five or ten leagues around. (Adieux de Calvin, Bonnet, ii. 578.)
The liturgy of Geneva, composed with rapidity under the pressure of the times, but with the skill and fine literary finish that are wont to characterize even the most hurried of Calvin's productions, has maintained its position undisputed to the present time, being the oldest of existing forms of wors.h.i.+p in the reformed churches.
The gradual change in the French language since the date of its composition has rendered necessary some modernizing of the style both of the prayers and of the accompanying psalms. These modifications, much more radical in the case of the metrical psalms, took place in the eighteenth century, and commended themselves so fully to the good sense of all French-speaking Protestants as soon to be everywhere adopted. The MS. records of the French church in New York (folio 45) contain, under date of March 6, 1763, a resolution unanimously adopted in a meeting of the heads of families and communicants, to change ”la vielle version des Pseaumes de David qui est en uzage parmy nous, et de prandre et introduire dans notre Eglize les Pseaumes de la plus nouvelle version qui est en uzage dans les Eglises de Geneve, Suisse et Hollande.” The liturgy has always been printed at the end of the psalter, and the change of the one involved that of the other. It has been noted above that the ”Confession of Sins” was the most characteristic part of Calvin's liturgy. In fact, the initial words of this confession, ”Seigneur Dieu, _Pere eternel_ et Toutpuissant,” came to stand in the minds of the Roman Catholics who heard them for the entire Protestant service. Bernard Palissy accordingly tells us (Recepte Veritable, 1563, Bulletin, i. 93) that a favorite expression of the Roman Catholics from Taillebourg, when committing all sorts of excesses against the Protestants of Saintes, was: ”_Agimus_ a gagne _Pere eternel_!” As _Agimus_ was the first word of the customary grace said at meals by devout Roman Catholics--”Agimus tibi gratias, omnipotens Deus,” etc.--this apparently enigmatical expression was only a profane formula to celebrate the triumph of the Roman over the reformed church. See Bulletin, xii. 247 and 469.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 516: Alluding to the compacts into which Francis had entered, the emperor accuses him of having purposely violated them all: ”los quales nunca a guardado, como es notorio, sino por el tiempo que no a podido ren.o.bar guerra, o a querido esperar de hallar oportunidad de danarme con disimulacion.” From Henry he antic.i.p.ates little better treatment. Instruct. of Charles V. to the Infante Philip, Augsburg, Jan.
18, 1548, Pap. d'etat du Card, de Granvelle, iii. 285. It ought to be added, however, that both Francis and his son retorted with similar accusations; and that, in this case at least, all three princes seem to have spoken the exact truth.]
[Footnote 517: The dauphin Francis died at Tournon, Aug. 10, 1536, probably from the effects of imprudently drinking ice-water when heated by a game at ball. None the less was one of his dependants--the Count of Montecuccoli--compelled by torture to avow, or invent the story, that he had poisoned him at the instigation of Charles the Fifth. He paid the penalty of his weakness by being drawn asunder by four horses! How little Francis I. believed the story is seen from the magnificence and cordiality with which, three years later, he entertained the supposed author and abettor of the crime. See an interesting note of M. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er, 184-186. The imperialists replied by attributing the supposed crime, with equal improbability, to Catharine de' Medici, the youthful bride of Henry, who succeeded to his brother's t.i.tle and expectations. Charles of Angouleme, a prince whose inordinate ambition, if we may believe the memoirs of Vieilleville, led him to exhibit unmistakable tokens of joy at a false report of the drowning of his two elder brothers, died on the 8th of September, 1545, of infection, to which he wantonly exposed himself by entering a house and handling the clothes of the dead, with the presumptuous boast ”that never had a son of France been known to die of the plague.”]
[Footnote 518: See Brantome, Hommes ill.u.s.tres (uvres, vii. 369, 370).]
[Footnote 519: This was as early as 1538. Memoires de Vieilleville (Ed.
Pet.i.tot), liv. v. c. 24, 25.]
[Footnote 520: ”The king is a _goodly tall gentleman_, well made in all the parts of his body, _a very grim countenance_, yet very gentle, meek, and well beloved of all his people.” The Journey of the queen's amba.s.sadors to Rome, anno 1555 (the last to pay reverence to the Pope, under Mary), printed in Hardwick, State Papers, I. 68.]
[Footnote 521: ”Non senza pericolo,” says Matteo Dandolo, ”perche corrono molte volte alle sbarre con poco vedere, s che si abbatterono un giorno a correre all' improvviso il padre (Francis) contra il figlio, e diede lui alla buona memoria di quello un tal colpo nella fronte, che gli lev la carne piu che se gli avesse dato una gran frignoccola.”
Relazioni Venete, ii. 171.]
[Footnote 522: Relations Ven. (Ed. Tommaseo), i. 286.]
[Footnote 523: Histoire ecclesiastique, i., 43. The most striking features of the character of Henry are well delineated by the Venetian amba.s.sadors who visited the court of France during the preceding and the present reigns. Even the Protestants who had experienced his severity speak well of his natural gentleness, and deplore the evils into which he fell through want of self-reliance. The discriminating Regnier de la Planche styles him ”prince de doux esprit, mais de fort pet.i.t sens, et du tout propre a se laisser mener en lesse” (Histoire de l'estat de France, ed. Pantheon litt., 202). Claude de l'Aubespine draws a more flattering portrait, as might be expected from one who served as minister of state in the councils of Francis I. and the three succeeding monarchs: ”Ce prince estoit, a la verite, tres-bien nay, tant de corps _que de l'esprit_.... Il avoit un air si affable et humain que, des le premier aspect, il emportoit le cur et la devotion d'un chacun.