Calvin retired within himself to meditate on the work to which God called him; he turned a deep glance into those depths of Scripture which he had so often sounded. Holding the torch of the Spirit, he summoned before him the great Persons of the Christian economy, not to make them figure, as the schoolmen had done, in a learned fencing-match, but to elicit from them the fundamental truths of faith, and plant the golden columns of the temple of light and life. [Sidenote: THE INSTITUTES.] The _Institutes of the Christian Religion_ is Calvin's great achievement; it is Calvin himself, and we must therefore describe it. History, indeed, generally narrates the actions performed by the arm of the soldier or the negociations of the diplomatist; but the work that Calvin then accomplished, by spiritual force, far exceeds in the importance of its consequences all that has ever been done by the pens of the ablest statesmen or the swords of the bravest warriors. Let us describe, therefore, this 'action' of a nature apart. 'Curious minds,' as Calvin calls them, will perhaps pass over these pages: we regret it, but we must write them all the same. 'The whole sum of wisdom,' said the great doctor of modern times at the beginning of his work, 'is that by knowing _God_, each of us knows _himself_ also; and these two facts are bound to each other by so many ties, that it is not easy to discern which goes before and produces the other.' In fact, Calvin, when addressing man, shows him first of all _God himself_—wonder of wonders!—_in man_. 'God,' says he to man, 'has stamped in you a knowledge of himself, and he continually refreshes this memory in you, as if he poured it out drop by drop. We have _a consciousness of divinity graven so deeply on our minds_, that we cannot erase it. The rebellion even of the wicked bears testimony of this, for while combating madly to throw off the fear of God, that fear remains inevitably clinging to them, as if it were in the marrow of their bones.' But after ascribing to man the exquisite privilege of bearing the name of God within him, Calvin immediately brings a severe charge against the human race. 'Alas! we shall hardly find _one_ in a hundred that cherishes this divine seed in his heart. Some through curiosity fly away in vain speculations; others vanish in foolish superstitions; others, finally, deprive God of his office as judge and governor, shut him up idle in heaven, and thus remain without God in the world.... What is to be done? Shall we toss and tumble continually, carried hither and thither by many erroneous levities?'[347]