For the Reformed believers in France, the year 1559 is crucial. Henri II is thoroughly irritated because of the development and progress of the "hérésie" and in April of the same year signs the inglorious treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, with Philip II of Spain. The ensuing months, he will seek to clean up the Body of the State and to remove all the Reformed nobles, as well as anyone contaminated by the evangeli­cal faith. Several Parliamentarians will be arrested and, naturally, the French protestants fear for their future; even Calvin despairs. In July, the death of Henri II dissipates much of the anxiety, although another outburst of persecu­tion soon expands the list of the out­laws and martyrs. However, a point of no-return has been attained, and Cal­vinism in France has become a respect­able public force; the quality of its adherents is remarkable, the majority belonging to the high ranks of French nobility.

The First National Synod, held in May of the same year, is indeed, in view of the circumstances, a highly sig­nificant event. In May 1559, it convenes in the royal city, Paris, while everyone is still keenly aware of the hatred the monarch bears for his Evangelical sub­jects, and of his attempt to eliminate them using all available means to eradicate the heresy from the kingdom. In this situation, holding a synod is clearly undertaking the impossible, yet it will be achieved. Calvin, in Geneva, assessing the dangers of pursuing the Reformed cause, is not enthusiastic and at first tries to dissuade it. To a rather irritated letter from Francois de Morel, one of the Parisian ministers, he writes after several days:

Had it pleased Heaven, I would have been in­formed earlier of the next assembly, and possibly, in order not to miss my part in say-so, would have had in mind a project worthy of consideration. However, as the date of the assembly is too immediate for my letter to arrive to you, even at the cost of the speediest mail-delivery, I pray God that he will manifest his Spirit, direct­ing your souls and presiding over everything that is to happen.

The great reformer is not a man to hide his deep feelings under false pretense too long, and soon he declares, "If a zeal so obstinate moves some to publish a confession of faith (confessio edendae), we witness in front of men and angels that such an itching will cause us irritation." The reason was that the church in Paris did not lack a confession, having in her possession already one special, by Cal­vin for the Paris church, in addition to Calvin's Catechism, another confession from Beza, but also one for "students of the Academy." In the eyes of Cal­vin, the initiative of both holding a synod and publishing a Confession was untimely and dangerous.

According to Emile Leonard, Professor of History at the Sorbonne, under whom I was privileged to study, it was a refusal ab irato. However, Cal­vin would soon send three of his in­timate friends, with whom he had entrusted the main part of the present confession, to Paris.

The first National Synod of the Reformed French would now publicly define the evangelical position.

Synod met between May 23-28 in a small street of the Faubourg-Saint­-Germain, presently called rue Viscon­ti. It deliberated in secret, for stakes and gallows were ready in almost every quarter of the city to burn or hang the martyrs of the Reformed faith. The situation was indeed very dangerous, but the meeting would not be dis­covered, nor hindered. The total num­ber of the churches represented was 72, with only twenty delegates.

The text adopted after that of the Church Discipline, had as its basis the Confession of faith of the Church of Paris, which had been specially written by Calvin in 1557, as well as a draft brought back from Geneva, also writ­ten by the reformer. Both documents were closely related to the Institutes. Their immediate ecclesiastical usage would become apparent as they would be published with the Psalter, and im­mediately after, in new Bible editions. It is amazing that in such a short lapse of time, four days, the synod could have achieved such a huge task. Forty articles now composed the content of the Confession. The text sent by Calvin had initially contained thirty-five ar­ticles (they are found in the Opera Calvini, tome IX, p. 739-752), but the first article had been modified by the synod to become five.

Comparing Calvin's original project with the synod's modified version is of great theological interest. Calvin had not referred to a natural revelation of God through Creation and Pro­vidence, a notion which the deputies of the synod included in the final article 2.

It is worth quoting Calvin's text, one of his most beautiful declarations:

Because the foundation of believing, according to saint Paul, is the Word of God, we believe that the living God revealed Himself in His law and His prophets, and finally in the Gospel, and that He rendered there witness to His will as much as it is expedient for the salvation of man. Therefore, we hold the books of the Holy Scripture, the Old and New Testament, as the sum of the only infallible truth proceeding from God, which we are not allowed to contradict. And also because the perfect rule of all wisdom is included, we believe that it is not fit­ting to add or to subtract, but rather to acquiesce in everything and every­where. And as this doctrine does not receive its authority from men or from angels, but from God only, we believe (for this is something that goes beyond our human feelings - to discern that God speaks) that it is God Himself who gives the certainty of this doctrine to his elected ones, and seals it in their hearts by His Spirit.

In the very beginning of the Confes­sion, it is not God but the Word of God, the written revelation, which is the unique mean for our true knowledge of Him, this being so because He wills it for the sake of our salvation. Therefore, outside of Scrip­ture there is no true knowledge of God, nor any possibility of seeking sal­vation. Man cannot know God in a dis­interested manner, even in the Bible. There, he knows Him as the condition that he seeks for his own salvation. Therefore, the truth contained in the Scripture is both wisdom and doctrine, and it is the Holy Spirit which gives to the elect the certainty of this truth and this salvation.

The synodical delegates may have esteemed this text to be too methodi­cal, and therefore modified and divided it into five articles. From Article 8 on, however, the whole Con­fession is unaltered which, according to Leonard, may be due to a lack of time rather than to agreement with Calvin(!).

The Confession of the Reformed Churches in France also bears the name of La Rochelle, where, in 1571 a synod approved it through the three representatives of the three French National Reformed Churches: Theodore de Bèze for the Church of Geneva, Jeanne d'Albret, the queen, for the Kingdom of Bean, in the south of France, and Admiral Gaspard de Coligny for the Church in France. The faith, courage, and nobility of heart of those French-Reformed heroes, were worthy of such a noble task, which ex­plains that their names have been in­cluded in the beginning of the first edition. The following year, a dedicatory letter presented the Con­fession to the King; the following words summarize the spirit in which it was composed.

The articles of our faith which are written in our Confession, may be sum­marized in one point: since God has sufficiently declared His will by His prophets and apostles, and also by the mouth of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, we owe this honor and reverence to the Word of God that we will not add anything from our part but entirely conform ourselves to the rule which is prescribed to us.

Very clearly, the Confession states the Scriptural principle, declaring the sovereign authority of the Scriptures. It is certainly one of the most beautiful, most clear, concise (4,000 words in­stead of 10,000 of the Belgica), and precise among all reformed confessions, naturally due to the genius of the French reformer.

The unique exceptional contribution by Calvin to the Confession was in his stressing the "witness and the internal persuasion of the Holy Spirit," a trait of the Bible that "distinguishes it from other ecclesiastical writings, upon which, though they may be useful, we must not establish any article of faith."

The forty Articles of the Confession are divided into eight parts:

1. GOD and His Revelation;

2. Man and his Sin;

3. Jesus-Christ;

4. The Work of Redemption;

5. The Church: her Na­ture;

6. 6The Church: her Organization;

7. 7The Sacraments;

8. The Civil Authorities.

Blaise Pascal, the French phil­osopher of the XVIIth century, believed only the Christian witnesses who were ready to die (butchered in the original) for their faith were authentic. The authors of the Confes­sion were ready to suffer martyrdom. At times, the "blood of the martyrs may become the seed of the Church"; yet, certainly, it is the combined dynamic "witness and internal per­suasion of the Holy Spirit," and the written Word, which will edify the Church. In a time in which so much vain effort is put into action from the side of those who try to defend the Bible with a rigid rationalistic manner of their own, and from the other side, the irrational activities of the cas-schis­matics with their unbelievable pretension to be the church of the Spirit, a genuine Confessing Reformed Church will declare without hesitation: BACK TO THE INTERNAL PERSUASION AND WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT, AND TO THE WRITTEN WORD.