Calvin and Charity

Calvin and Charity...

Calvin is made out to be a monster within many minds. He in one woman's mind is a member of the Illuminati (I have to laugh at this). But whatever the case, he is accused of single handedly murdering multiple individuals, including Miguel Servetus, and creating his own city-state in Geneva and setting himself up as a Pope in that place... None of these are nice things, in fact, they are wrong.
I'm one to let history speak for itself. His enemies wrote many horrible things about him. Many never having attended the city. But when one thinks of Calvin, unfortunately, they don't think of his own words on which charity is. He had a high vision of what the Imago Dei (the image of God) is in every man. Let's read what he says...

"6. Moreover, that we may not weary in well-doing (as would otherwise forthwith and infallibly be the case), we must add the other quality in the Apostle's enumeration, "Charity suffiereth long, and is kind, is not easily provoked," (1 Cor. 13:4). The Lord enjoins us to do good to all without exception, though the greater part, if estimated by their own merit, are most unworthy of it. But Scripture subjoins a most excellent reason, when it tells us that we are not to look to what men in themselves deserve, but to attend to the image of God, which exists in all, and to which we owe all honour and love. But in those who are of the household of faith, the same rule is to be more carefully observed, inasmuch as that image is renewed and restored in them by the Spirit of Christ. Therefore, whoever be the man that is presented to you as needing your assistance, you have no ground for declining to give it to him. Say he is a stranger. The Lord has given him a mark which ought to be familiar to you: for which reason he forbids you to despise your own flesh (Gal. 6:10). Say he is mean and of no consideration. The Lord points him out as one whom he has distinguished by the lustre of his own image (Isaiah 58:7). Say that you are bound to him by no ties of duty. The Lord has substituted him as it were into his own place, that in him you may recognize the many great obligations under which the Lord has laid you to himself. Say that he is unworthy of your least exertion on his account; but the image of God, by which he is recommended to you, is worthy of yourself and all your exertions. But if he not only merits no good, but has provoked you by injury and mischief, still this is no good reason why you should not embrace him in love, and visit him with offices of love. He has deserved very differently from me, you will say. But what has the Lord deserved? Whatever injury he has done you, when he enjoins you to forgive him, he certainly means that it should be imputed to himself. In this way only we attain to what is not to say difficult but altogether against nature, to love those that hate us, render good for evil, and blessing for cursing, remembering that we are not to reflect on the wickedness of men, but look to the image of God in them, an image which, covering and obliterating their faults, should by its beauty and dignity allure us to love and embrace them." Institutes of the Christian Religion Book 3, Chapter 7, Section 6

I honestly have no idea how this isn't a reflection of the man's heart. I've done extensive study on the man John Calvin, and, yes, I came out with reservations on him. Most of those reservations are just results of the times he lived in. But, he was also a good man. When passing through Geneva on his was to Strasbourg to settle down and study in quiet he was faced with the choice to stay and deliver the Gospel, or leave and face the wrath of God for not delivering the Gospel to a starved people. He stayed and turned the city into a model of Christian servitude. Don't smudge the name of a great man by the word of his enemies. Look to the man himself to make his own defense.

Soli Deo Gloria!