Note 1132 — Chapter XII

So Calvin's eye saw in an instant, and he applauded Beza's boldness. "Your speech is now before us," he wrote to Beza, Sept. 24th, "in which God wonderfully directed your mind and your tongue. The testimony which stirred up the bile of the holy fathers could not but be given, unless you had been willing basely to tergiversate and to expose yourself to their taunts." "I wonder that they were thrown into agitation respecting this matter alone, since they were not less severely hit in other places. It is a stupid assertion that the conference was broken off in consequence of this ground of offence. For those who now, by rabidly laying hold of one ground, after a certain fashion subscribe to the rest of the doctrine, would have found out a hundred other grounds. This also has, therefore, turned out happily." Calvini Epistolæ, Opera, ix. 157.