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Albany, OR: Books For The Ages, 1998. (В файле 437 с.).
This set is originally a 8 volume work. The renovation of the individual, of the church, and of the human race, is the theme. If the Holy Ghost kindles the lamp of truth in man, it is (according to Calvin) to the end that the entire man should be transformed. In the Kingdom of Christ, he says, it is only the new man that flourishes and has any vigor, and whom we ought to take into account. This renovation is, at the same time, an enfranchisement; and we might assign, as a motto to the reformation accomplished by Calvin, as well as to apostolical Chiristianity itself, these words of Jesus Christ: The truth shall make you free. (John 8:32)
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THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY
HISTORY
HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN THE TIME OF CALVIN VOL. 1 by J.H. Merle d’Aubigne
B o o k s Fo r Th e A g e s AGES Software • Albany, OR USA Version 1.0 © 1998
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HISTORY OF THE
REFORMATION IN EUROPE IN THE TIME OF CALVIN. BY
J. H. MERLE D’AUBIGNE, D.D., AUTHOR OF the ‘HISTORY OF the REFORMATION OF the SIXTEENTH CENTURY,’ ETC. Les choses de petite duree ont coutume de devenir fanees, quand elles ont passe leur temps. ‘Au regne de Christ, il n’y a que le nouvel homme qui soit florissant, qui ait de la vigueur, et dont il faille faire cas.’ CALVIN.
VOL. 1
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INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN THE TIME OF CALVIN T HIS history, though a separate work, may be considered as a second series of the History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century. Two elements are found combined in this narrative, more intimately than in the events detailed in the preceding work. These two elements are political liberty and evangelical liberty. The author, when writing this work, often thought of the United States of America, in whose existence this two-fold element seemed more particularly embodied. When going over the struggles which were encountered for liberty at Geneva, when tracing the principles which, though so true, were at that period so little understood in Europe, but which were even then loudly proclaimed in this small State; when recounting the instances of unalterable attachment to right, to national institutions and to law, of which the Genevese gave so many proofs, and the heroic devotion with which the citizens made every sacrifice, even that of life itself, for the independence of their country; the author felt that some pious, but unenlightened men, might perhaps say that such subjects ought not to be treated at length in these volumes. But he comforted himself with the thought, that Christian men in different countries, friends of independence and of truth, would understand the intimate union that exists between liberty and the Gospel. The author asks himself whether this work will be received with any interest in America, or whether the anxieties that now pre-occupy the minds of the citizens, are not too absorbing to leave room for sympathy with the story of the olden times. He, however, hopes that the history of the struggles of a heroic republic in past ages, may prove some relief to the anxieties of the present. If any thing in the publication of his former work was calculated to rejoice the heart of the author, it is the cordial manner in which its appearance was hailed by the Anglo-Saxon race in general, and especially in the United
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States. Letters received from the solitary shores of some great inland lake or from some distant region of the great continent of America, have given him the most precious reward that an author can have — the assurance that, by the blessing of God, his writings have not only excited some passing interest in the breasts of his readers, but that they have been the means by which some souls have received the light whic