That was a solemn time for Calvin, when in the room he occupied at Catherine Klein's, he finished his _Institutes_. In after years pious Christians entered her house with respect, and one of them, Peter Ramus, being there in 1568, five years after the reformer's death, exclaimed with emotion: 'Here were kindled the torches that shed so great a light! Here those illustrious _Christian Institutes_ were composed; and here Calvin gave himself up wholly to heavenly vigils!'[356] The _Christian Institutes_ in its earliest form was a simple defence, explaining briefly _law_, _faith_, _prayer_, _the sacraments_, _Christian liberty_, and the nature of the _Church and State_. But the French refugees at Geneva, and even distant protestants, continually solicited Calvin to set forth the whole Christian doctrine in his book; and accordingly it received numerous additions.[357] The _Christian Institutes_ are a proof that christian love prevailed in Calvin's mind: indeed, he wrote for the justification of _believers, his brethren_. However, by defending the reformed, he explained and justified the Reformation itself. What are its principles? The formative principle of faith and of the Church is, with him as with Luther, the sovereign Word of God; but he asserts it with more decision than his predecessor. Calvin is anti-traditional: he will have nothing to do with host, or font, or festivals and other ceremonies preserved by Luther. He did not _reform_ the Church, he _re-formed_ it; he created it anew. Zwingle also was scriptural, as opposed to tradition; yet Calvin's theology is different from his; that of the Zurich doctor was specially exegetic, while that of the Geneva doctor was specially dogmatic. If from the formative principle we pass to that which theologians call the material principle, namely, that which distinguishes the nature and very essence of its doctrine, we find that it is at heart the same in Luther and Calvin—gratuitous salvation; but the former, clinging to Christian _anthropology_, laid down as a fundamental article, the justification by faith of the regenerate man; whilst Calvin, clinging particularly to _theology_, to the doctrine of God, proclaimed first of all, salvation by the sovereignty of divine grace. Calvin's polemics, in his _Institutes_, are essentially positive. Like a master in the midst of artists, who are endeavouring to draw the same picture, Calvin traces his outline with a bold hand, distributes the light and shade, and succeeds in making an admirable work. And from that time his rivals have only to look at it, to acknowledge the imperfections of their own, with all their want of proportion and extravagance.... Calvin destroys what is ugly, but he first creates the beautiful.