By John Calvin.
Letters of John Calvin.
By John Calvin.
COMPILED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITED WITH HISTORICAL NOTES.
VOL. 2.
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL LATIN AND FRENCH.
BY DR. JULES BONNET.
About the Letters:
It was but a few days before his death, and in the course of one of the latest conversations handed down to us by Theodore Beza, that Calvin, pointing with failing hand to his most precious furniture, his manuscripts, and the archives of the correspondence that, during a quarter of a century, he had kept up with the most illustrious personages of Europe, requested that these memorials might be carefully preserved, and that a selection from his letters, made by some of his friends, should be presented to the Reformed Churches, in token of the interest and affection of their founder.
This request of the dying Reformer, although treasured in the heart and memory of him who had succeeded to his plans and carried on his work, received but an imperfect fulfilment in the sixteenth century. The times were adverse, and the accomplishment of the duty was difficult.
Still it must be owned, that notwithstanding all difficulties, the friends of Calvin did not shrink from the performance of their duty. By their care, the originals or the copies of a vast number of letters addressed to France, England, Germany, and Switzerland, were collected at Geneva, and added to the precious deposit already confided to them.
This labour, early commenced and pursued for twenty years under the vigilant superintendence of Beza, was the origin of the collection of Calvin’s Latin Correspondence published in 1575;
The correspondence of Calvin begins in his youth and is only closed on his deathbed, (May 1528 to May 1564.) It thus embraces, with few intervals, all the phases of his life; from the obscure scholar of Bourges and Paris escaping from the stake by flying into exile, to the triumphant Reformer, who was able in dying, to contemplate his work as accomplished.
From the Preface of this book.
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