Book Description

Calvin produced commentaries on most of the books of the Bible. His commentaries cover the larger part of the Old Testament, and all of the new excepting Second and Third John and the Apocalypse. His commentaries and lectures stand in the front rank of Biblical interpretation. Our Author has exerted a powerful influence on all succeeding expositors. They have found their interest in listening to his instructions, and have been more deeply indebted to him than is generally known. Many valuable interpretations of passages of Scripture appeared for the first time in his writings, and have ever since been warmly approved. In other cases, the views which had been previously held are placed by him in so strong a light as to remove every doubt, and satisfy the most cautious inquiry. And yet the stores, from which so much has been drawn, are far from being exhausted, nor is their value greatly lowered by improvements which have been subsequently made. The department of History presents an analogous case. Documents which had been overlooked are carefully examined. Conflicting evidence is more accurately weighed. Important transactions assume a new aspect, or, at least, are altered in their subordinate details. Still, there are historians, in whose narrative the great lines of truth are so powerfully drawn, that the feebler, though more exact, delineations of other men cannot supply their place. In the chief moral requisite for such a work Calvin is excelled by none. He is an honest interpreter. No consideration would have induced him to wrest the words of Scripture from their plain meaning. Those who may question his conclusions cannot trace them to an unworthy motive. Timid theologians will be occasionally startled by his expositions.