87 - Courtenay Studies In Reformation Theology: I. John Calvin

Courtenay Studies In Reformation Theology:
I. John Calvin
Edited by Gervase E. Duffield
222 pp. Grand Rapids, Mich., Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1966. $5.95.

This is the first volume of a series directed by an advisory board of seven British scholars. There are eleven studies by the nine contributors who include one American and three French Calvin scholars. British contributors are from Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds, and Belfast. The essays show a good deal of variation in depth of research, though all are marked by scholarly competence. For the reader's guidance it seems best here to characterize each contribution, though this must be done with great brevity.

Numbers 1 and 2 of the series are by Basil Hall of Cambridge: "The Calvin Legend" and "Calvin against the Calvinists." Professor Hall deals knowingly with a variety of Calvin's detractors in the modern age. He is most impressive on twentieth century calumniators, and with the contemptuous clichés of tractarian Anglicans. In the second study the emphasis is the distinction between the teaching of Calvin and that of his successors such as Beza, Hotman, Knox, and certain English Puritans, a distinction pointed out by Archbishops Whitgift and Bancroft. Ford Lewis Battles of Hartford offers an illuminating study of the sources of Calvin's Seneca Commentary. The article affords a clear look into young

88 - Courtenay Studies In Reformation Theology: I. John Calvin

Calvin's mind and at the same time an exciting foretaste of the now almost-ready scholarly edition by Battles and A. M. Hugo of this early work of Calvin, which is sure to be something of a landmark in Calvin studies. After his ample notes, Battles appends a classified list of Calvin's classical sources. Jean-Daniet Benoit on "Calvin the Letter Writer" presents a fascinating human interest story illumined by many quotations. Distinctly theological elements are deliberately excluded, but not the Reformer's "mystical and yet dynamic faith" or his work of spiritual direction. Benoit has a second essay on the history of the Institutes marked by the excellence one expects of this author. Jean Cadier on "Calvin and the Union of the Churches" and G. S. M. Walker on Calvin's doctrine of the Lord's Supper write too briefly to give us much more than useful summaries of familiar knowledge. J. I. Packer on the spacious subject "Calvin the Theologian" brings out well (in 26 pages) some major emphases, pointing out resemblances and differences with other Reformers; but he minimizes Calvin's recognition of verbal error in Scripture. T. H. L. Parker's "Calvin the Biblical Expositor" is closely factual and historical. Appended to this essay is a valuable reference list of the Commentaries by dates both of their delivery as lectures and of their publication. Rudolphe Peter has an informing account of Calvin's contribution to Louis Budé's Psalter of 1551. Calvin's Preface to this notable work, omitted from the Calvini Opera, is here printed, and also the related Preface to the Bible of the same date published by J. Crespin. R. N. Caswell gives a substantial account, under appropriate heads, of Calvin's discipline. I could have wished that he had made more central in this that which Calvin puts on a different level from the other principles discussed, his paramount concern for the protection from profanation of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. There are some quotations that lead in this direction. But it is not recalled that in 1548 Calvin wrote to Somerset urging that the English bishops establish a firm discipline "that the Supper of our Lord may not be polluted by people of scandalous lives"; nor are we here reminded that in 1537 Calvin and Farel laid it down that: "In this profanation of his sacrament our Lord is gravely dishonored. . . . For this reason our Saviour set up in his Church the correction and discipline of excommunication." If the centrality of this concern of Calvin is overlooked, the tendency is to mistake the discipline for mere legalism. Discipline has been "set up for this reason."

In his brief Introduction to the volume, the Editor says: "These essays do not reflect the standpoint of any school." They are, however, uniformly respectful to Calvin and in general bear an evangelical tone.

John T. McNeill
Middlebury, Vermont