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Memoirs of the Life and Writings of John Calvin
Memoirs of the Life and Writings of John Calvin Author:John Mackenzie Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. I. Birth and Education of Calvin — His Application to the Study of the Law — Reasons for quitting that Profession — Publication of his Institutes — Jour... more »ney to Italy. JOHN CALVIN, the celebrated Reform- er, was born at Noyon, a town in Picardy, on the 10th of July, 1509. Undistinguished by the splendour of family consideration, it was reserved for him to give dignity and perpetuity to a name, which had hitherto occupied an humble but respectable rank in society. His father, whose name was Gerard, a sensible and prudent man, had gained the esteem and friend- The circumstance of a trifling alteration in the name of our reformer, which it appears was Cmivin, having been maliciously perverted by some of his enemies, we bhall present our readers with a justification of it in the words of the celebrated Mr. Drelincourt. "In reality," saith he, "the change of a letter in Calvin's name is very inconsiderable, or rather, signifies nothing- at all ; for being; to turn Cavvin into Latin, if one would give it an air and termination suitable to the genius of the language, how can one turn it otherwise than by Calvinus? for as all good authors call that in Latin, Catvus, which the Picards eall Cirew.und the Frenchmen Chatme, so, instead of Cavvin m Picard, and Chauvin in French, the Latin must have it Calvmus. Now this godly man's first work being written in Latm, and he thereby known by the name of Cahiinus, if after that, -w hen he wrote in French,"he had used any other name than that of Calvin, the work might have been taken for another man's, to the no small damage of the reader and printer." — Defense de Cuban par Dretincaurt, p. 202. ship of all the neighbouring gentlemen, and particularly of the family of Montmor, a family of the first distinction in Picardy. John Calvi...« less