Christian History Home > Issue 71 > Pleading the Cause of Christ
Pleading the Cause of Christ
In the Prefatory Address to his Institutes, John Calvin defends both his doctrine and its battered believers.
John Calvin | posted 7/01/2001 12:00AM
To his most Christian Majesty, the most mighty and illustrious Monarch, Francis, King of the French, his Sovereign;
John Calvin prays Peace and Salvation in Christ.
Sire,—When I first engaged in this work, nothing was farther from my thoughts than to write what should afterwards be presented to your Majesty. My intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to true godliness. And I toiled at the task chiefly for the sake of my countrymen the French, multitudes of whom I perceived to be hungering and thirsting after Christ, while very few seemed to have been duly imbued with even a slender knowledge of him. That this was the object which I had in view is apparent from the work itself, which is written in a simple and elementary form adapted for instruction.
But when I perceived that the fury of certain bad men had risen to such a height in your realm, that there was no place in it for sound doctrine, I thought it might ...
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