John Calvin's Institutes in a Year

Today’s Readings Podcast Description

Can present-day monkism claim Augustine? Calvin says no. Augustine would not bind what Scripture leaves free, would not let monks live idle on other men’s goods, and made charity the chief rule so that the monastery would train ordinary piety and serve the unity of the Church. Modern monkism, he says, exacts dress, diet, and ceremony as if they were the faith itself, glories in idleness as a contemplative approach to the angels, and invents a new piety by which a few men become more perfect than the rest. They reserve the title of perfection for their own order, then retreat to the subterfuge that they only aspire to it more than others. They treat Christ’s commands as mere “evangelical counsels,” as if love of enemies and truthfulness were optional extras. The rich young ruler is no proof that selling all is a second path to perfection. Christ probed one man’s hidden love of riches; Paul still names charity the bond of perfectness.

Today’s Readings:

John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 13, Sections 10–13

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Today’s Readings Podcast Description

When is a private vow a help, and when is it only more superstition? Calvin allows temporary vows that curb a weakness or stir a sluggish duty, provided they rest on God’s word, fit our calling, and stay within the measure of grace. The one vow required of all is the baptismal promise, confirmed in catechism and the Lord’s Supper. Perpetual and multiplied vows soon lose their solemnity and bind the conscience. The common religion of pilgrimages, special fast-days, and meritorious fatigue he judges empty and impious. He then turns to monastic vows (*vota monastica*). Ancient monachism (*monachatus*) was not a second holiness beside the Church. Monasteries were austere seminaries from which Basil, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and many others were called to the episcopal office. Augustine’s portrait shows common labour, common goods, measured austerity, and charity that would rather give wine to the sick than treat food as pollution.

Today’s Readings:

John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 13, Sections 5–9

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Today’s Readings Podcast Description

When is a private vow a help, and when is it only more superstition? Calvin allows temporary vows that curb a weakness or stir a sluggish duty, provided they rest on God’s word, fit our calling, and stay within the measure of grace. The one vow required of all is the baptismal promise, confirmed in catechism and the Lord’s Supper. Perpetual and multiplied vows soon lose their solemnity and bind the conscience. The common religion of pilgrimages, special fast-days, and meritorious fatigue he judges empty and impious. He then turns to monastic vows (*vota monastica*). Ancient monachism (*monachatus*) was not a second holiness beside the Church. Monasteries were austere seminaries from which Basil, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and many others were called to the episcopal office. Augustine’s portrait shows common labour, common goods, measured austerity, and charity that would rather give wine to the sick than treat food as pollution.

### Today’s Readings:

John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 13, Sections 5–9

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Today’s Readings Podcast Description

What makes a vow to God lawful, and when does it become a new tyranny over the conscience? Calvin begins a new chapter on vows (*vota*). The Church was already buried under traditions; then private persons added heavier chains of their own. Three tests decide a vow: it must be made to God and consist only of what his word requires; it must fit our strength and calling; and it must be undertaken with a right intention. Will-worship (*ethelothrēskeia*) is abomination, however splendid. Lifelong celibacy (*caelibatus*) is the chief example of rashness, because continence (*continentia*) is a gift often given only for a season, and celibacy is not the same thing as chastity (*castitas*). Lawful vows may thank God, chasten a fault, curb a weakness, or stir a sluggish duty—and even then they should be sober and temporary. The one vow common to all believers is the baptismal promise of obedience under the covenant of grace.

### Today’s Readings:

John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 13, Sections 1–7

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Today’s Readings Podcast Description

Should the clergy be under a stricter discipline than the people—and may the Church forbid pastors to marry? Calvin first recovers the ancient order: bishops watched their clergy by canons, visitations, and synods; the clergy were to be harder on themselves than on the flock. What remains in his day he treats as ape-like mimicry of those rites. Then he turns to mandatory priestly celibacy (*caelibatus*). God left marriage free; Paul requires a bishop to be the husband of one wife and warns that forbidding to marry is a doctrine of demons. Marriage is not pollution of the flesh. Christ made it an image of his union with the Church. The Levitical intervals of abstinence do not bind evangelical pastors, and Paphnutius at Nicaea called lawful marriage chastity (*castitas*). Later praise of virginity (*virginitas*) may prefer the unmarried; it may not bind those who cannot bear it, nor use the name of antiquity while leaving whoredom unpunished.

Today’s Readings:

John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 12, Sections 22–28

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Today’s Readings Podcast Description

When war, famine, or pestilence appears, should the Church still humble herself with fasting? Calvin says yes. Fasting was never abrogated; Christ reserved it for days of mourning. A true fast is not ordinary frugality, but a temporary restraint in time, quality, and quantity of food, so that the mind may rise more freely to prayer. Yet the first danger is always superstition. God abominates a torn garment with an unrent heart. Fasting is not meritorious worship, and it must not be ranked among the works that are necessary in themselves. The forty-day fast of Christ was a miracle to confirm the gospel, not a law for an anniversary Lent. Later ages bound the conscience with food laws, then mocked God by seeking the praise of abstinence in delicacies. The remedy is simple: rend the heart first, and use fasting only as a help to humiliation and prayer.

### Today’s Readings:

John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 12, Sections 17–21

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Today’s Readings Podcast Description

When should zeal for purity refuse to split the Church? Calvin, following Augustine against the Donatists, warns that private persons must not separate themselves because elders cannot correct every vice at once, and pastors must not abandon their ministry or wreck the flock by unwonted severity. Discipline that bursts the bond of peace ceases to be medicine. False zeal, then as now, covers pride with the shadow of sternness and turns brotherly correction into schism. When sin has seized a multitude, teaching and admonition must temper the rod. Beyond the keys themselves, pastors may also call the people to extraordinary prayer and fasting in times of controversy, election, war, pestilence, or famine. A lawful fast has three ends: to subdue the flesh, to prepare the mind for prayer, and to confess guilt before God. Fasting is not worship in itself. It is a help, so that the soul may rise more freely to God.

Today’s Readings:

John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 12, Sections 11–16

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Today’s Readings Podcast Description

How should the Church actually use the keys without turning discipline into either tyranny or despair? Calvin distinguishes public scandals from intermediate faults, and lighter offences from flagrant iniquities. Verbal, fatherly correction is enough for some; temporary exclusion from the Lord’s Supper is required for others, until repentance is made evident. Even emperors stand under this tribunal: Theodosius laid aside his insignia before Ambrose. Yet severity must be joined with meekness, lest the sinner be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Ancient multi-year exclusions often produced hypocrisy or despair rather than healing. Excommunication is not anathema. It does not erase a person from the number of the elect, nor consign him to final ruin. It judges present manners by the word of God, warns of coming judgment, and still treats the offender as a brother to be recovered.

### Today’s Readings:

John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 12, Sections 6–10

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Today’s Readings Podcast Description

Can a church live long without discipline? Calvin answers that doctrine is the life of the Church, but discipline is its sinews. Without private admonition, public correction, and, when necessary, exclusion from the society of believers, preaching grows lethargic and every man does what is right in his own eyes. Secret faults are to be treated by the steps of Matthew 18; open scandals are to be rebuked before all. Lighter delinquencies call for warning; flagrant crimes call for a sharper remedy. Excommunication has three ends: that the name of Christ may not be dishonored, that the good may not be corrupted by the leaven of the wicked, and that the sinner himself may be ashamed and restored. The judgment of the Church is not a human invention. When it judges by the word of God, what it binds on earth is ratified in heaven.

Today’s Readings:

John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 12, Sections 1–5

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Today’s Readings Podcast Description

How did spiritual shepherds become earthly lords? Calvin traces the rise of papal civil power from slender beginnings: voluntary arbitration became ordinary jurisdiction; patrons became masters; princes, by a mistaken piety, helped abolish the ancient discipline of the Church. The Donation of Constantine is treated as a fable, and Gregory himself is cited as a witness that the Roman bishop once spoke as the emperor’s servant, not as his superior. Bernard is summoned against the claim of both swords: the keys were given for sins, not for lands; ministry was enjoined, dominion interdicted. The later demand of clerical immunity from civil courts is set against Ambrose and Gregory, who reserved questions of faith to the Church, yet submitted in other matters and refused to defend the Church by arms. Pious princes may support religion by law; they may not swallow the Church. Pastors may guard doctrine and discipline; they may not seize the sceptre.

### Today’s Readings:

John Calvin — Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 11, Sections 10–16

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