John Calvin-Life,Legacy and Theology

JOHN CALVIN : LIFE, LEGACY AND THEOLOGY -
PROF. M. M. NINAN
and its Worship at Geneva) to the city council. The document described the manner and frequency of
their celebrations of the Eucharist, the reason for, and the method of, excommunication, the
requirement to subscribe to the confession of faith, the use of congregational singing in the liturgy, and
the revision of marriage laws. The council accepted the document on the same day.
In May 1536 the city adopted religious reform:
monasteries were dissolved
Mass was abolished
Papal authority renounced
IN September, 1536, many of the principal citizens, accompanied by great numbers of the lower
classes, had demanded an audience of the council; before whom they protested that they could not
endure the reproofs of the ministers, and that they wished to live in freedom.
The confession already mentioned, as drawn up by Farel and Calvin, was printed and distributed in
the spring of 1537: yet it did not seem to produce much impression, and was ill received on all sides.
Very few returned the confession signed individually as required.
The article respecting excommunication, which put a great deal of power into the hands of the
ministers, by enabling them to exclude the refractory from the sacrament, was particularly obnoxious.
Far from giving way, however, the ministers pressed upon the government the necessity of
establishing still more stringent rules for the maintenance of religion; and unless this were done,
Calvin, who was bound to the city by no particular ties, threatened to leave Geneva.
The oath taken by the people towards the close of the previous year to observe the confession had
been administered collectively; but now Calvin and his colleagues succeeded in persuading the
government that it should he offered to them individually.
This ceremony accordingly took place in St. Peter's church, on Sunday the 29th of July, 1537, and
following days. After a sermon by Farel, the town secretary mounted the pulpit, and read the
confession. After that the people were brought up by tens, and sworn to the observance and made to
sign the confession. However the people soon rose against it. Many, however, especially among
the leading people, refused compliance with what cannot be designated otherwise than as an act of
ecclesiastical tyranny. The council, however, were so devoted to the ministers, that at their instance
they ordered the disaffected to leave the city. But they were too numerous to allow of this measure
being carried into effect; and the show of such an inclination, without the power of enforcing it, only
rendered the malcontents more violent.
The opposition to these forcing of reform within matters connected to religious faith increased
continuously. By degrees their number of supporters increased. Many of those who had sworn to the
confession began to join them, and complained that they had been compelled to perjure themselves.
They soon began to assume the shape of an organized party, calling themselves "Brothers in Christ,"
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