[554] 'Idolotramenta.' Registres du Conseil du 28 Juin 1535.—Farellus Calvino.
[555] 'Magistratus fungeretur officio patris . . . . officium faceret pro gloria Dei et plebis salute.' Farel to Calvin, _Epist. Calv._—Chronique MSC. de Roset, iii. p. 37.
[556] 'Le conseil donc, délayant, ne faisait rien.'—Chronique MSC. de Roset, iii. p. 37.
[558] Dépêches des Syndics, du 18 Juillet, aux Cantons Suisses.
[559] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, p. 127.—Registres du Conseil du 23 Juillet.
[560] Registres du Conseil du 30 Juillet.
[562] Registres du Conseil du 8 Août 1535.—Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, pp. 142, 144.
CHAPTER VI. IMAGES AND THE MASS ABOLISHED. (8TH TO 11TH AUGUST 1535.)
The Reformation protested against a ritualistic and meritorious worship; against the multiplicity of feasts, consecrations, ecclesiastical usages and customs; against any adoration whatever rendered to creatures, images, and relics; against the invocation of mediators who usurped the function of the Son of God; lastly, and chiefly, against a pretended expiatory sacrifice, effected by the priests, which was substituted for the only sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ.
All these human vanities were about to disappear. Farel and his friends waited for the reformatory ordinance; but the ardent huguenots, among whom Ami Perrin was the most active, became impatient at the perpetual hesitations of the council. A chance event called forth an energetic demonstration on their part. The same Sunday (8th August) in the afternoon at vespers, the canons, assembling again in their church, chanted the Psalm _In exitu Israël_, 'When Israel went out of Egypt,'[563] and, with the utmost simplicity, repeated in Latin what Farel had said in the morning in French:
Simulacra gentium argentum et aurum, Opera manuum hominum. Os habent et non loquentur. Oculos habent et non videbunt. Similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea Et omnes qui confidunt in illis.[564]
The canons could not have chosen a fitter text. Some huguenots, who knew Latin better perhaps than they did, smiled and called out: 'Ho there, you priests, you curse in your chants those who made the images and trusted in them, and yet you allow them to remain.' They restrained themselves, however, for the moment. The magistrates continued repeating, 'There is no need to abolish the mass and images; else very formidable princes will be to you like ravening wolves rushing upon sheep.'[565]