[366] Decimo Calendas Septembris.—Latin edition, at the head of the _Institutes_. [367] 'Magnum meretrici Babylonicæ vulnus illatum.'—Beza, _Vita Calvini_. [368] _Préface des Psaumes._ [369] Varillas, _Hist. des Hérésies_, ii. p. 994. BOOK V. STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION. CHAPTER I. EFFORTS IN THE PAYS DE VAUD. (1521.) Struggles, political or religious, are the normal state of society and the life of history. Their necessity in a christian point of view is established by the highest of authorities: _I am not come to bring peace upon earth but the sword_, said the Saviour of men;[370] and one of his disciples sixteen centuries later, developing his master's words, added: 'As the greater part of the world is hostile to the gospel, we cannot confess Christ without encountering opposition and hatred.'[371] [Sidenote: USES OF OPPOSITION.] This thought would be saddening indeed, did not experience and Scripture teach us that opposition is often a means of developement; that the gifts of God to man easily perish if nothing revives them; that contradiction, resistance, and trial (thanks to the care of divine providence) tend to civilise nations, and preserve to Christianity the truth, morality, and life it has received from on high. Whence proceeds this moral influence of contradiction? A principle never evolves all that it contains, says a school, except by coming in collision with a contrary principle. In effect, the blow which a soldier receives on the battle-field adds to his valour. The inflexible obstinacy of Rome in upholding all abuses, excited Luther to display with more energy the great principles of the Reformation. And at Geneva, it was because the huguenots had to contend perpetually against a mean despotism in the State and an incorrigible corruption in the Church, that their souls groaned after liberty and a better religion. Yet contradiction is not all that is necessary: there must be reconciliation afterwards. The twofold opposition of the huguenots (high-minded as it was) against civil and religious despotism, would have been ruined by its excess and would have ruined Geneva, if it had not been moderated afterwards. It was not good for the State that 'no one was willing to obey.'[372] It was not good for religion that opposition to popery should consist in walking about the churches during mass. Modern times needed, from their very cradle, authority in the bosom of a free people, and pure doctrine in the bosom of a living Church. God gave both to Geneva, and he did so essentially through the Reformation. Care must be taken, however, that we go not too far in the way of accommodation. The Reformation must make no concessions to popery. Whenever it has gone down that easy incline, it has left its calm heights and fallen among quagmires which have endangered its purity and existence.