May not that flame be extinguished, ask christians hesitatingly. 'No,' said Calvin, 'the light of faith is never so extinct that there does not remain some glimmer. The root of faith is never so torn from the heart, that it does not remain fastened there, although it seems to lean to this side or that.' 'Faith,' he exclaimed (and he had often felt it), 'faith is an armed man within us to resist the attacks of the evil one.... If we put faith in the front, she receives the blows and wards them off. She may indeed be shaken, as a stalworth soldier may be compelled by a violent blow to step backwards. Her shield may receive damage so as to lose its shape, but not be penetrated; and even in this extremity the shield deadens the blow, and the weapon does not pierce to the heart.' After consoling the timid and uplifting the wounded, this extraordinary man, who speaks with the firmness of one of the captains of the army of God, exhorts the soldiers of Christ to be brave: 'When St. John promises the victory to our faith, he does not mean simply that it will be victorious in _one_ battle, or in _ten_, but in _all_. Be full of courage then. To fluctuate, to vary, to be tossed to and fro; to doubt, to vacillate, to be kept in suspense, and finally to despair ... that is not having confidence. We must have a solid support on which we can rest. _God has said it_, that is enough. Being under the safeguard of Christ, we are in no danger of perishing.'[351] Calvin turning to Rome seeks for the origin of its errors and superstitions, and finds it in the pelagianism with which it is tainted. Grace in all its fulness,—grace from the first movement of regeneration until the final accomplishment of salvation, was the keynote of all Calvin's theology; and it is also the powerful artillery with which he batters the Roman fortress. Like St. Paul in the first century, like St. Augustine in the fifth, Calvin is the _Doctor of grace_ in the sixteenth. This is one of his essential features. 'The will of man,' he said, 'cannot of itself incline to good. Such a movement, which is the beginning of our conversion to God, Scripture entirely attributes to the Holy Ghost. A doctrine not only useful, but sweet and savoury through the fruit it bears; for those who do not know themselves to be members of the peculiar people of God, are in a continual trembling.... No doubt the wicked find in it a matter to accuse and cavil at, to disparage and ridicule ... but if we fear their petulance, we must keep silence as to our faith, for there is not a single article which they do not contaminate with their blasphemies. Christ (he continues) wishing to deliver us from all fear in the midst of so many deadly assaults, has promised that those who have been given him by his Father to keep, shall not perish.'[352]