To the Reader

The primary preface to the Institutes is the "Prefatory Address to King Francis." But in the 1559 edition of the ICR Calvin includes another short preface entitled "John Calvin to the Reader," which is one of those rare portions of Calvin's writings in which he reveals to us something of the man himself, and his purpose in producing the Institutes.

One of Calvin's theological descendants, Jonathan Edwards, wrote in his Resolutions: "Resolved: To live with all my might, while I do live." Clearly, Calvin himself had resolved to do just that. In "...to the Reader," Calvin describes the illness he suffered through while preparing this edition of the ICR for publication.

"In any event, I can furnish a very clear testimony of my great zeal and effort to carry out this task for God's church. Last winter when I thought the quartan fever (a form of malaria) was summoning me to my death, the more the disease pressed upon me the less I spared myself, until I could leave a book behind me that might, in some measure, repay the generous invitation of godly men."

As we will find when we come to his preface to the King, one of Calvin's purposes in producing the ICR was to provide a confession of the Reformed faith which might serve to refute the slanders and libels then being spoken into the ears of Francis I. But that purpose seems to have arisen only after Calvin had begun to produce the Institutes, as word of the horrific persecution of the French Protestants came to him. His initial and primary purpose was to provide an instrument by which men might be equipped for the ministry of the Word. Indeed, this would be a focal point of Calvin's ministry for the rest of his life.

"Moreover, it has been my purpose in this labor to prepare and instruct candidates in sacred theology for the reading of the divine Word, in order that they may be able both to have easy access to it and to advance in it without stumbling."