John Calvin
November 14, 2007
Marshall Knappen’s description of the Genevan teacher and his influence makes me think of ‘Del Boy’ or Arthur Daley:
Though… there were many varieties of Reformed belief, and many different Reformed leaders who influenced English Puritanism, none was nearly so important from this time on [the exile under Mary's reign] as the Genevan…
John Calvin had a mind that was good, but not too good, and thorough training for his work. He had studied the classics, law, and theology. But it was his determined self-assurance which made him what he was. Without it a clear head and a broad training would have counted for little. Never cursed with any doubts as to the correctness of his ideas, he had the salesman’s gifts of absolute confidence in his product and the strength of will to compel the acceptance of his point of view. To these all-important qualities he added some sense of political realities. As a young man this deterred him from accepting Anabaptist doctrines, and in his mature years it kept him from attempting the impossible and also enabled him to stoop now and then to a necessary compromise. With this equipment, he succeeded in making both his theology and his city-state models for the Protestants of north-western Europe. - Tudor Puritanism, pp. 134-135
