Institutes of Christian religion - Calvin - I - Prefatory address

Required reading
Institutes of Christian religion by John Calvin (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read the Prefatory Address.

My summary
Today we begin a very special Reformed work which I've been looking forward to reading in the club since its inception.

We start with the Prefatory Address to the King of France where Calvin gives his reason for writing the Institutes.  At the end of the Preface, Calvin sums up what he intended to do with the Preface: 'My object, however, was not to frame a defence, but only with a view to the hearing of our cause, to mollify your mind, now indeed turned away and estranged from us—I add, even inflamed against us—but whose good will, we are confident, we should regain, would you but once, with calmness and composure, read this our Confession, which we desire your Majesty to accept instead of a defence.'

Calvin has to make the above clarification at the end of his Preface because he spent so much time answering Roman Catholic objections to the Reformers. 

The objections were that Reformed theology was:
(i) new;
(ii) doubtful and uncertain;
(iii) lacking miraculous confirmation;
(iv) against the church Fathers;
(v) against custom;
(vi) teaching that the church was for a time without life;
(vii) producing disturbances.

What grabbed me
I liked Calvin's clear statement on what makes the true church of God: 'We, on the contrary, maintain, both that the Church may exist without any apparent form, and, moreover, that the form is not ascertained by that external splendour which they foolishly admire, but by a very different mark, namely, by the pure preaching of the word of God, and the due administration of the sacraments. They make an outcry whenever the Church cannot be pointed to with the finger. But how oft was it the fate of the Church among the Jews to be so defaced that no comeliness appeared? What do we suppose to have been the splendid form when Elijah complained that he was left alone? (1 Kings 19:14). How long after the advent of Christ did it lie hid without form? How often since has it been so oppressed by wars, seditions, and heresies, that it was nowhere seen in splendour? Had they lived at that time, would they have believed there was any Church? But Elijah learned that there remained seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee to Baal; nor ought we to doubt that Christ has always reigned on earth ever since he ascended to heaven. Had the faithful at that time required some discernible form, must they not have forthwith given way to despondency? And, indeed, Hilary accounted it a very great fault in his day, that men were so possessed with a foolish admiration of Episcopal dignity as not to perceive the deadly hydra lurking under that mask. His words are (Cont. Auxentium), “One advice I give: Beware of Antichrist; for, unhappily, a love of walls has seized you; unhappily, the Church of God which you venerate exists in houses and buildings; unhappily, under these you find the name of peace. Is it doubtful that in these Antichrist will have his seat? Safer to me are mountains, and woods, and lakes, and dungeons, and whirlpools; since in these prophets, dwelling or immersed, did prophesy.” '

The church is in existence where the word is preached and the sacraments administered.

Next week's reading
Read the three epistles to the reader and the section entitled 'Method and arrangement'.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.