ABSTRACT
Calvin was considerably behind Luther in introducing into his pronouncements any concept of active resistance. Although he is often seen as a decisive influence on armed uprising, there is virtually no evidence in his writing that he condoned such actions. The fact that his followers did eventually resort to arms can be attributed far less to Calvin’s writings and sermons than to the pressure of circumstance, since they were harrassed to the point of seeing peril for the Church in acquiescence. Although it is important to consider Calvin’s involvement in the Conspiration d’Amboise, which marked the point of overt intervention on the part of the Reformers in affairs of state, it is in many ways more important to examine the moral directive offered by Calvin to his followers in the Institution Chrestienne, which appeared in French translation in Geneva in 1541. It is here that we find expressed the disparity between the life of the spirit and activity in society which comprised much of the substance of Calvin’s teaching and established a perspective which, for some, endured.
