THE INSTITUTES

1. Benedict - convincing Francis I that the evangelical faith not threat to order, yet cast dangers of false worship
   1. Catholic practices 'frightful abhominations'
2. Excommunication

   Annotations:

   • Instituted to bar the evidently unbelieving and unworthy
3. Relation between Church and State

   Annotations:

   • Influenced by the Gospel
   1. RESPONSIVE NATURE

      Annotations:

      • Official condemnation of the Affair of the Placards of 1534
      • Protest against the attitude of the French Crown with regard to the Reform
      1. Calvin's utter focus on French affairs
      2. Keen to clear French Reformed from the accusation of rebellion
4. Indebted to Lutheran thought
   1. Its planning
   2. Exposition on the Decalogue and the first article of the Creed

Annotations:

• Blueprint for shunning sinners who refused to amend their ways after first private, then collective admonitions failed to move them.

1. Benedict - Formed the sinews of a rightly ordered church and encompassed the power of excommunication

   Annotations:

   • The Consistory served a different need to state's suppression of criminal behaviour
2. Preferred aristocratic governance - least likely to fall to tyranny

Annotations:

• clear model for church discipline

1. Scripture

   Annotations:

   • Spelled out the basic offices found in any properly ordered Christian church.
   1. Inspired by Bucer

      Annotations:

      • 'On True Pastoral Care' of 1538 on the NT - "pastors and preachers as the servants who meet the needs of the poor on behalf of the common church".
      • Bucer - 'Holy Spirit's ordinance...each church have a number of elders who are all pastors and bishops; overseers who provide pastoral care and carry out the pastoral office
      1. 1543 revision incorporated Bucer's claim (Benedict)

         Annotations:

         • Various forms of ministry had a clear biblical sanction and gave greater precision to the lists on ministers in Bucer's work.
         1. Revisions created a work that was comprehensive and compact - appropriate for theological instruction and laymen - (Benedict)
   2. McGrath - "Calvin points to how we are able to appreciate and enjoy the good things of life

      Annotations:

      • Celebrate and acknowledge their author, giving him thanks - Calvin's sentiment

Annotations:

• Calvin strengthened ministerial authority by claiming divine ordination for it, and gave those recognising the need to escape pollutive Rome a positive alternative model of a true Christian church

1. Pastors

   Annotations:

   • Proclaiming the Gospel and administering the sacraments BIBLE - 'bishops', 'presbyters', 'pastors', 'ministers',
   • Like Bucer, Calvin (Benedict) deduced that the Roman Catholic hierarchy that distinguished bishops from parish ministers was illegitimate
   • Some ministers could have an oversight role, but all should preach and minister to a congregation at the same time
   • Ministers of the Word
2. Teachers

   Annotations:

   • Experts in scriptural interpretation, but LACKED authority to apply Scripture
3. Elders

   Annotations:

   • Censured morals
4. Deacons; Two types

   Annotations:

   • Responsible for the relief of the poor
   1. Collecting and distributing alms
   2. Devoted to physical care of the poor and sick

      Annotations:

      • Included widows - deaconesses as well as deacons. Inspired by Paul in Timothy 5:9-10

Annotations:

• Humanity as humble and cast down, to learn to tremble at his judgment and esteem his mercy - ELECTION

1. Addressed in 1539 Institutes - reaction against Melanchthon
2. Influenced by the modern Augustinian school (McGrath)

   Annotations:

   • Taught a doctrine of absolute double predestination - God allocates some to eternal life and others to eternal condemnation, without any reference to merits or demerits. Fate rests upon the will of God
3. Salvation lies outside the control of the individual

   Annotations:

   • Calvin; forced to reckon with the mystery of the inexplicable
4. God not subject to any law

   Annotations:

   • God is outside the law, and that his will is the foundation of existing conceptions of morality
   • Predestination rests in the inscrutable judgements of God
   • Ancillary doctrine; explaining a puzzling aspect of the consequences of the proclamation of the gospel of grace - McGrath

1. Predestination follows the exposition of the doctrine of faith

   Annotations:

   • Predestination in its proper context - mystery of divine revelation - yet revealed in a specific context and specific manner
   • Jesus the 'mirror' of election- an object lesson for the upright in faith
   1. Scripture, Calvin feels able to deny any weakness on God's part -OMNIPOTENCE (McGrath)
   2. Biblical exposition and systematic theology virtually identical to Calvin (McGrath)
2. Culminating work of Calvin's lifetime
   1. Translated into French in 1560
   2. Four Books of the Institutes
   3. Monumental work

      Annotations:

      • Its success was immense and it was never discredited afterwards.
   4. Theological Summa of Reformed Protestantism

1. Whole of Calvinism is in the Institutes
   1. All other works related to it
   2. Synthesis of Calvin's thought

1. Contained 3x as much matter as the 1539 edition
2. REACTIVE
   1. Servetus' writings and the Anabaptists - increased exposition on the Trinity
3. Influenced by Bucer's work
   1. More coherent and systematic - better mastery of material
4. French version translated 1541
   1. Elegant and personal style
   2. Abundant circulation in France

      Annotations:

      • established itself at once as the basic manual of dogmatic in the reformed churches.

1. Translated into French 1551
2. Subdivided into paragraphs - helping the reader find their way

1. Hist. - Calvin more constructive than imaginative
   1. Interested more in humanist erudition than original discoveries
2. Hist. debate on role of Luther
   1. Calvin his most faithful disciple
      1. Comparisons are confirmed and legitimised by the homage that Calvin never ceased to render to Luther and his work.
   2. Renegade from Lutheran thought
      1. Calvin had too strong a personality to profess himself of Luther’s school without criticism or reservations
3. Derived thought from Augustine or Bucer
   1. Idea of the Church points of comparison with Bucer palpable

      Annotations:

      • Unified in two aspects (visible and invisible)
      1. Though taken as much from Augustine doctrine
   2. Church organisation

      Annotations:

      • Wendel - Bucer's most important contribution
      • Ecclesiastical organisations are of Divine right because they are dictated by the Holy Spirit
4. Wendel - Greater knowledge of OT than any other reformer
5. Influenced by scholastic authors, medieval scholars, Church Fathers and Roman Law
6. Melanchthon

   Annotations:

   • His expositions on tables of the Law, upon faith, hope and charity influenced Calvin's thought
7. Little respect for Zwingli

   Annotations:

   • Saw him as a second-rate theologian - didn't understand Zurcich's support-base for him

1. Initially - exposition on Christian doctrine as a whole

   Annotations:

   • Sort of Catechism - an elementary manual
2. Calvin; the Holy Spirit calls upon men to imbue themselves with Divine revelation

   Annotations:

   • By the reading of Holy Scripture
   1. Institutes a means to fulfil this
3. Manual so as not to commit errors by misinterpreting Scripture
   1. Purpose for translating it into French - dissemination of correct reading of Scripture
4. 1560 edition - Latin preface for students and the learned

   Annotations:

   • Fundamental aim of work made apparent
   1. Underlining, for the benefit of all readers, the function that had to be fulfilled by dogmatics