Calvin begins his appeal to King Francis by reminding him that what makes a true king is "to recognize himself a minister of God in governing his kingdom." The king who "does not serve God's glory exercises not kingly rule but [robbery and plunder]. Furthermore, he is deceived who looks for enduring prosperity in his kingdom when it is not ruled by God's scepter, his Holy Word [Proverbs 29:18]."
Calvin exhorts King Francis to study the Institutes so he will see that its doctrine "is not of us, but of the living God and his Christ whom the Father has appointed King ‘to rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers even to the ends of the earth' [Psalm 72:8].... just as the prophets have prophesied concerning the magnificence of his reign. Indeed, our adversaries cry out that we ... wickedly corrupt [the Word of God]. By reading our confession you can judge [for yourself how malicious and shameless this accusation is]."
The Apostle Paul "set forth a very clear rule to test all interpretation of Scripture. Now, if our interpretation be measured by this rule of faith, victory is in our hands." Here Calvin sets forth the first major principle of the reformation: salvation by grace alone. All Scripture, Calvin says, must be interpreted according to the rule of grace. If not, then the true meaning of Scripture will be twisted and distorted.
Calvin continues, "For what is more [consistent] with faith than to recognize that we are naked of all virtue, in order to be clothed by God? That we are empty of all good, to be filled by him? That we are slaves of sin, to be freed by him? [That we are] Blind, to be illumined by him? ... Weak, to be sustained by him? To take away from us all occasion for [boasting], that ... we [may] glory in him [cf. Jer. 9:23-24; 1 Cor. 1:31; 2 Cor. 10:17]?" Our adversaries "cannot bear that the whole praise and glory of all goodness, virtue, righteousness, and wisdom should rest with God." But they are like those who ‘have dug for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water [Jer. 2:13]."
"Despite this, [our adversaries] do not cease to [attack] our doctrine ... They call it ‘new' and ‘of recent birth.' They reproach it as ‘doubtful and uncertain.' They ask what miracles have confirmed it. They [ask] whether it is right to [disagree with ancient custom and tradition, and so many holy fathers]. They urge us to [admit] that [our doctrine] is schismatic [or divisive], ... [since] it has [given birth to so many different churches and factions, and so many violent disturbances and] such great licentiousness."
Let me now answer those charges. "First, by calling [our doctrine] ‘new' they do great wrong to God, whose sacred Word does not deserve to be accused of novelty. Indeed, I do not at all doubt that it is new to them, since to them both Christ himself and his gospel are new [Isaiah 1:3]." But he who is familiar with the preaching of Paul [Romans 4:25] "will find nothing new among us." The only reason why our doctrine seems to be new is because the true gospel has for a long time been unknown and buried. This is the fault of man's ungodliness. But God by His goodness has restored the true gospel to us.
"In demanding miracles of us, they act dishonestly. For we are not [inventing] some new gospel, but are [holding on to] that very gospel [which has already been confirmed by all the miracles that Jesus Christ and His disciples did]."
Scripture warns us "concerning the legitimate purpose and use of miracles. For Mark teaches that those signs which attended the apostles' preaching were set forth to confirm it [Mark 16:20]. In like manner, Luke relates that our ‘Lord ... bore witness to the word of his grace,' when these signs and wonders were done by the apostles' hands [Acts 14:3; cf. Hebrews 2:4]." This teaches us that truth "is superior to miracles." And let us not forget "that Satan has his miracles, which, though they are deceitful tricks rather than true powers, are [the kind that will] mislead the simple-minded and [untaught] [cf. 2 Thess. 2:9-10]. Magicians and enchanters have always been noted for miracles."
"The Donatists of old overwhelmed" the common people by claiming that they were mighty in miracles. "We, therefore, now answer our adversaries as Augustine then answered the Donatists: the Lord [told us to beware] of these miracle workers when he predicted that false prophets with lying signs ... would come to draw even the elect (if possible) into error [Matt. 24:24]. And Paul warned that the reign of Antichrist would be ‘with all power, and signs and lying wonders' [2 Thess. 2:9]. But these miracles, they say, are [not done by idols or by magicians], nor by false prophets, but by the saints. [But they have forgotten that one of the tricks of Satan is to] ‘disguise himself as an angel of light' [2 Cor. 11:14]. Well, we are not entirely lacking in miracles, and [our miracles are] very certain and not subject to mockery. On the contrary, those ‘miracles' which our adversaries point to in their own support are sheer delusions of Satan, for they draw people away from the true worship of their God to vanity [Deut. 13:2ff.]."
"Moreover, [our opponents] set the ancient [church] fathers against us ... as if in them they had supporters of their own [ungodliness]. If the contest were to be determined by [the authority of the church fathers] the tide of victory ... would turn to our side. Now, these fathers have written many wise and excellent things. Still, what commonly happens to men has [happened] to them too, in some [cases]." Therefore, it is Christ "whom we must obey in all things without exception [cf. Col. 3:20]. He who does not observe this distinction [between Christ's authority and the authority of the church fathers] will have nothing certain in religion, [because] these holy men were ignorant of many things, [they] often disagreed among themselves, and sometimes even contradicted themselves. ... But if our opponents want to [stay within] the limits set by the fathers ... why do they themselves transgress them so willfully as often as it suits them?"
Calvin now gives some examples of how the Roman Catholic Church did not follow the interpretations of the church fathers. "It was a [church] father who [said] it [was] a dreadful abomination to see an image either of Christ or of some saint painted in the Churches of Christians." In fact, an entire church council-the Council of Elvira-declared ‘That there ought not to be images in a church, that what is worshiped and adored should not be depicted on the walls.' Our opponents "are far from remaining within these limits when they leave not a corner free from images." "It was one of the fathers who testified that in the [Lord's Supper] the substance of bread and wine remained and did not cease to be," but our opponents say that the substance of bread and wine ceases and is transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. It was a church father who said that marriage should not be forbidden to the minister of the church, and that cohabitation with one's wife is pure and holy. And other fathers agreed with his opinion. But our opponents have gone beyond this limit by requiring celibacy for their priests. Our opponents accomplish nothing when they appeal to custom or tradition. "Indeed, if men's judgments were right," custom could be trusted. But this is not the case; in fact, it is possible for the majority of people to be wrong, as was the case in the days of Noah when God destroyed the whole world, and saved only Noah and his family.
Calvin next answers the accusation that if the Protestant Gospel is a recovery of the true gospel, then this means that the true gospel was not taught for many centuries; but if this is true, then the true church did not exist for all those centuries, for the true church cannot exist without the true gospel.
Calvin replies: "Surely the church of Christ has lived and will live so long as Christ reigns at the right hand of his Father. It is sustained by his hand;" he promised to be "with his own even to the end of the world [Matt. 28:20]. Against this church we have no quarrel. For, of one accord with all [believers], we worship and adore one God, and Christ the Lord [1 Cor. 8:6], as he has always been adored by all godly men."
"Our controversy with our opponents concerns two main points. First, our opponents claim that the church cannot exist without any visible appearance, and that the only faithful visible church is the Roman Catholic Church and its hierarchy. We disagree. We affirm "that the church can exist without any visible appearance," and that when it is visible, its mark is not outward magnificence but rather "the pure preaching of God's Word and the lawful administration of the sacraments. [Our opponents] rage if the church cannot always be pointed to with the finger." But what form do they think the church "displayed when Elijah complained that he alone was left [1 Kings 19:10, 14]? ...If [our opponents] had lived at that time, would they have believed that any church existed? But Elijah heard that there still remained seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee before Baal." If "believers had then required some visible form, would they not have [immediately] lost courage?" The church father Hilary warned his generation that it was wrong to show respect to the church of God in roofs and buildings, because the Antichrist would have his seat in them.
"Away, therefore, with such a foolish appraisement! Rather, since the Lord alone ‘knows those who are his' [2 Tim. 2:19], let us leave to him the fact that he sometimes removes from men's sight the external signs by which the church is known. ... In such a way the Lord of old punished men's ingratitude. For, because they had refused to obey his truth ... he allowed their blinded senses to be [deceived by] ... foolish lies ... so that no [outward appearance] of the true church remained. Meanwhile, he preserved his own children from extinction, though they are scattered and hidden in the midst of these errors and darkness [just like he preserved his children when they were taken captive to Babylon]."
"Now I shall point out how dangerous is their desire to have the [outward appearance] of the church judged by some sort of vain pomp. ... The pontiff of Rome, they say, ... [and his bishops] represent the church, and must be taken for the church; therefore they cannot err. Why so? Because, they reply, they are pastors of the church and have been [chosen and] consecrated by the Lord. Were not Aaron and the other leaders of the people of Israel also pastors? Indeed, Aaron and his sons, though [ordained] priests, still erred when they fashioned the calf [Ex. 32:4]." There were many prophets in Israel who boasted that ‘the law could not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet' [Jer. 18:18]; and yet Jeremiah alone is sent from the Lord to rebuke the whole tribe of the prophets. Also, did not the visible church in the person of the scribes and Pharisees err when they decided to crucify Christ?
Lastly, our opponents unfairly blame us for the many disturbances and disagreements that the preaching of our doctrine has drawn along with it. "The blame for these evils ... ought to have been [blamed on] Satan's malice. Here is, as it were, a certain characteristic of the divine word, that it never comes forth while Satan is at rest and sleeping." Thus, in our generation when the light of truth began ... to scatter the darkness, Satan "began to shake off his accustomed drowsiness and to take up arms." First, "he stirred up men to action that thereby he might violently oppress the ... truth. And when this profited him nothing, ... he aroused disagreements ... through his [Anabaptists] and other monstrous rascals in order to obscure and at last to extinguish the truth."
But all that is in vain, if we listen to our Lord, who long ago exposed Satan's tactics, "that he might not catch us unawares;" and the Lord taught us how to defend ourselves "against all [Satan's] devices." One such defense is to realize that this accusation by our opponents is nothing new. "Elijah was asked if it was not he who was troubling Israel [1 Kings 18:17]. To the Jews, Christ was [the trouble-maker]. The charge of stirring up the people was laid against the apostles [Acts 24:5ff.].... Elijah taught us what we ought to reply to such charges: it is not we who ... spread errors [or cause trouble]; but is it they who contend against God's power [1 Kings 18:18]."
Regarding those people who are tempted to waver because of disagreements and troubles, let them know "that the apostles in their day experienced the same things that are now happening to us. There were unlearned and unstable men who, to their own destruction, distorted things that had been divinely written by Paul [2 Pet. 3:16].... There were people who accused Paul of being a persuader of evil. Many false apostles were intruding themselves to destroy churches that [Paul] had built. ... What were the apostles to do here?" Should they have forsaken the gospel "because they saw that it was the seedbed of so many quarrels, the source of so many dangers ...? Yet in tribulations of this sort they were helped by the thought that Christ is a ‘rock of offense, a stone of stumbling,'" and the gospel is a "fragrance of death unto death for those who perish; yet for us it was destined ... ‘to be a fragrance from life to life' [2 Cor. 2:15-16; cf. Rom. 1:16]."
"But I return to you, O King. May you not at all be moved by those vain accusations with which our [opponents] are trying to inspire terror in you." Such accusations are not even remotely true. We have not spoken one seditious word; "we, whose life when we lived under you was always acknowledged to be quiet and simple; we, who do not cease to pray for the full prosperity of yourself and your kingdom, although we are now fugitives from home! ... Even though in our moral actions many things are blameworthy, nothing deserves such great reproach as this. ... But if any persons [cause trouble] under the pretext of the gospel-[up until now] no such persons have been found in your realm-... there are laws and legal penalties by which they may be severely restrained according to [what they deserve]. Only let not the gospel of God be blasphemed in the meantime because of the wickedness of infamous men." "May the Lord, the King of kings, establish your throne in righteousness [cf. Prov. 25:5], and your dominion in equity, most illustrious King."
