Institutes of Christian religion - Calvin - LVIII - Chapter 2 of Book 4

Required reading
Institutes of Christian religion by John Calvin (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 2 of Book 4.

My summary
This week Calvin applies his teaching to the Roman Catholic church.

Firstly he recaps from last week as to what comprises a true church.

Then he demonstrates that the Roman Catholic church is not a true church: 'There, instead of the ministry of the word, prevails a perverted government, compounded of lies, a government which partly extinguishes, partly suppresses, the pure light. In place of the Lord’s Supper, the foulest sacrilege has entered, the worship of God is deformed by a varied mass of intolerable superstitions; doctrine (without which Christianity exists not) is wholly buried and exploded, the public assemblies are schools of idolatry and impiety.'

Calvin then examines the grounds for their claim that they are the true church: the succession of bishops.  Calvin shows that this is not a valid foundation.

Therefore, Calvin claims, there is no ground to declare the Protestants guilty of schism.

But it is not all bad news.  Calvin does say that some remnant of the true church remains: 'Still, as in ancient times, there remained among the Jews certain special privileges of a Church, so in the present day we deny not to the Papists those vestiges of a Church which the Lord has allowed to remain among them amid the dissipation.'

What grabbed me
I appreciated Calvin's frankness that Protestants are not schismatics: ' As to their charge of heresy and schism, because we preach a different doctrine, and submit not to their laws, and meet apart from them for Prayer, Baptism, the administration of the Supper, and other sacred rites, it is indeed a very serious accusation, but one which needs not a long and laboured defence. The name of heretics and schismatics is applied to those who, by dissenting from the Church, destroy its communion. This communion is held together by two chains—viz. consent in sound doctrine and brotherly charity. Hence the distinction which Augustine makes between heretics and schismatics is, that the former corrupt the purity of the faith by false dogmas, whereas the latter sometimes, even while holding the same faith, break the bond of union (August. Lib. Quæst. in Evang. Mt.). But the thing to be observed is, that this union of charity so depends on unity of faith, as to have in it its beginning, its end, in fine, its only rule. Let us therefore remember, that whenever ecclesiastical unity is commended to us, the thing required is, that while our minds consent in Christ, our wills also be united together by mutual good-will in Christ. Accordingly Paul, when he exhorts us to it, takes for his fundamental principle that there is “one God, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5). Nay, when he tells us to be “of one accord, of one mind,” he immediately adds, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:2, 5); intimating, that where the word of the Lord is not, it is not a union of believers, but a faction of the ungodly. '

We can only be charged with schism if there is unity of doctrine and we break from it.  If there is no true faith, then there is no schism. 

An important teaching to remember in our day when some Protestant churches rightly divide from 'Protestant' churches.

Next week's reading
Read Chapter 3 of Book 4.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.