Tracts & Letters (Vol 3) - Calvin - XII - Tract 3

Required reading
Tracts and Letters (Volume 3) by John Calvin (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Tract III (On shunning the unlawful rites of the ungodly, and preserving the purity of the Christian religion).

My summary
Now we read a letter from Calvin to a friend (known only as N.S.).  The letter is in response to a request for advice on how to live in a Roman Catholic community.

Calvin spends the bulk of the letter speaking against the teachings of Roman Catholicism, particularly the Lord's Supper which he condemns as idolatry.

He then closes the letter with two commands:
(i) Consider it a thing altogether interdicted to allow any man to see you communicating in the Sacrilege of the Mass, or uncovering your head before an Image, or observing any form of Superstition belonging to the class of those by which, as shewn above, the glory of God is obscured, his religion profaned, and his truth corrupted.;
(ii) Unless you are preparing to give any one an exposition of your faith, indulge their bigotry so far as not to push yourself forward at the time when they are performing their Rites, causelessly to make a display of contempt, which you are aware that they (such is their ignorance !) will regard as sheer impiety against God.

What grabbed me
An altogether interesting letter demonstrating Calvin's sympathy for those that didn't have the privilege of living in Protestant Geneva.

I appreciated the clear teaching that the Roman Catholic Mass is idolatry: 'There is a third point, however, which, the more clearly it is explained, the more seriously it ought to impress pious minds, viz., the abominable Idolatry, when Bread is pretended to assume Divinity, and raised aloft as God, and worshipped by all present ! The thing is so atrocious and insulting, that without being seen it can scarcely be believed ; but it stands so exposed to the eyes of all, that there is very little need of argument. A little bit of Bread, I say, is displayed, adored, and invoked. In short, it is believed to be God, a thing which even the Gentiles never believed of any of their statues ! And let no one here object that it is not the Bread that is adored, but Christ, who becomes substituted for the Bread the moment it has been legitimately consecrated. '

God does not want you to worship bread, he wants you to worship him and him alone.

Next week's reading
Commence Tract IV (Psychopannychia) by reading up to the paragraph beginning: 'Let us now examine the cradle in which they rock souls asleep, and let us dispose of the soporiferous draught which they give them to drink.'.

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