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When it came to matters of faith, John Calvin was more interested in doing what was “right” than about being liked or complimented; or at least he wanted to give that impression. As he told Melanchton, no servant of God should concern himself with being popular. In December 1556, though, one Scottish refugee living in Geneva praised Calvin and his work as few others ever had, especially in the city itself. The man was John Knox, an aggressive Reformer who made Calvin and Farel seem timid in comparison. What he said about Calvin's Geneva has come to be regarded as perhaps the greatest testimony to the way in which Calvinism sought to turn its theological vision into a concrete social and political reality: I neither fear nor ashame to say, [Geneva] is the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in earth since the days of the Apostles. In other places, I confess Christ to be truly preached; but manners and religion so sincerely reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place. Yet, only two years earlier, when Calvin and Knox first met, the two men had disagreed about the way in which such a state of affairs could be achieved in less receptive lands, such as England and Scotland. As in the other cases we have witnessed where pupil met master, Calvin could not bring himself to accept the new dimensions being given to his own teachings by this refugee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the heart of winter 1545, as Protestants in France grew increasingly restless with Calvin's refusal to compromise on the issue of worship, the Genevan reformer wrote a letter to the ailing Martin Luther. It was the first time that Calvin, not yet firmly established in his position as leader of the Reformed cause, attempted to cross the personal chasm that separated him from the great, and by now almost mythic Luther. After this one attempt, Calvin would never write him again. What prompted Calvin to take this step was the issue of idolatry, more specifically, the occurrence of dissembling behavior among Protestants, or as Calvin himself called it, Nicodemism. Calvin asked Luther to voice his opinion on this problem, to lend support to his own position, and thus help convince wavering Protestants that there could be no compromise of any kind with Catholic worship. It was a risky move on Calvin's part, but unavoidable. He knew that Luther harbored little sympathy for the Reformed. Luther had only recently written his Short Confession Concerning the Lord's Supper, where, as Calvin himself said to Bullinger, Luther had “erupted into savage invective, not just against you, but also all of us.” Calvin knew that a few terse, negative words from Luther could do great damage to his reputation among the French, who seemed eager to find a more conciliatory leader. But Calvin had no choice. Hoping, perhaps, to get to Luther before the Nicodemites, he agreed to act as a go-between. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At one point during the First Zurich Disputation, Ulrich Zwingli said the following about Protestant guidelines for religious reform: We desire to speak of the truth [to find out], whether a man is bound by divine ordinance to keep that which on account of long usage has been set up as law by men. For we of course think that custom should yield to truth. The question for Zwingli was no longer one of rejecting the misuse of “good and honorable customs,” as had been the case with Erasmus, but rather of separating human customs from divine ordinances. Zwingli's statement focuses on the foundations of the Protestant attack on medieval piety. Unlike Erasmus, Protestant Reformers drew a sharp distinction between “good” and “evil,” or “true” and “false” worship. This distinction often involved separating the heavenly from the earthly as well. Protestantism claimed that the medieval Church had fallen into idolatry, and this judgment had a dual perspective. In the first place, as is indicated in Zwingli's argument, a distinction was made between rites of divine origin and humanly devised observances. The externalized cult of medieval Catholicism was attacked as a human institution that was opposed to the worship revealed by God in scripture. In other words, the Church had set itself up as an idol, substituting its own decrees for those of God. Secondly, the Catholic cult was attacked as improperly directed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]