More Indebted to Thomas Than Peter

Daniel Featley has the distinction of serving both as one of the translators of the 1611 King James Bible and as a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines.

Daniel Featley, Καταβαπτισταὶ καταπτυσταί. The Dippers dipt: or, the Anabaptists duck’d and plung'd over head and ears, at a Disputation in Southwark. Together with a large and full Discourse of their (1) Originall, (2) Severall sorts, (3) Peculiar Errours, (4) High Attempts against the State, (5) Capital punishments: with an application to these times (1645), p. 199:

As S. Gregorie said, plus debeo Thomae, quam Petro, I am more indebted to Thomas then [sic] Peter (see Gregory, In Evangelia Homilae, Hom. 26 in Opera (1615), tom. 3, cols. 83-84 (PL 76: 1201-1202 [sects. 7-9]), because his doubting of Christ's resurrection occasioned a more sensible demonstration thereof then otherwise we should have had: so truly I may say, we are much beholding to him, who first moved the scruple concerning the imputation of Christ's sole satisfaction, for it hath occasioned the resolution, not onely of that doubt, but of many other concerning the communicatio idiomatum, the effects of the hypostaticall union, the nature of the law, and the faithful title to heaven.

The Accusative Case

Among the stories told of John Calvin, it is often stated, by his friends and enemies, that in his youth, as a student, he was nicknamed accusativus, or, The Accusative Case, for his severe censoriousness of others' morals. In fact, to set the record straight, it was not a contemporary label for him but one that was first employed a century later by a hostile biographer (see in particular the research of Abel Lefranc, La Jeunesse de Calvin; and Emilé Doumergue, Jean Calvin, Vol. 1, pp. 73-75).

John Thomas McNeill, The History and Character of Calvinism, pp. 98-99:

The College de Montaigu proved, indeed, a suitable nursery for Calvin's mind. It is usual to suggest that he was at this stage an unsocial being, austere and harshly critical and condemnatory of his fellow students. The statement is attributed his opponent, Francois Baudouin, that as an undergraduate Calvin was commonly called 'the accusative case.' Actually Baudouin wrote nothing to this effect. The statement apparently originated with another hostile writer, Lavasseur [Jacques Le Vasseur], more than a century later (1633). It has been gleefully repeated as history many times, even since the facts were exposed by Emile Doumergue. It is an example of how misstatements gain credence. Actually what it probably rests upon is a remark by Baudouin that Calvin's cousin, Olivétan, was nicknamed 'the ablative case' because of his eagerness to 'throw off' his academic gown after lecture. Beza, however, in his Life of Calvin states that as a student Calvin was a censor of the vices of his fellows, and we may well believe this. Perhaps what Gregory the Great said of St. Benedict might truly be said of Calvin also: 'From his younger years he carried always the mind of an old man.' He gave an impression not only of studiousness but of maturity.

But there is no evidence that young Calvin was uncompanionable: much, indeed, to the contrary. He maintained good relations with his former schoolfellows of the de Heangest familes, with three of whom, and their tutor, he had come to Paris. He was closely associated with his scholarly cousin, Pierre Robert Olivier (Olivétan), three years his senior, whom he had known also in Noyon. He became a welcome guest in the homes of two of the greatest men of the university, Guillaume Cop, a medical scholar and the king's physician, and Guillaume Budé, the most learned Hellenist of France and the most effective liberal opponent of Beza. Calvin formed close ties with the sons of both these distinguished men, and later both families were represented among French religious refugees to Geneva. Through his influence a number of the de Hangest family also later became Protestants; but not his best companion among them, Claude. All the facts belie the picture of young Calvin as morose. It would be difficult, indeed, to discover a teen-age student of his time who attracted so many choice friends. The fact that his friends were not of the rank and file, and that they were all older than he, has no doubt some significance. We may suppose that as a student he felt no attraction toward intellectual mediocrity.

Elephants and Lambs Swimming and Sailing

Thomas Goodwin, "Short, Holy, and Profitable Sayings of the Reverend Divine, Doctor Thomas Goodwin," in The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Vol. 12, pp. 131-132:

We sail to Glory, not in the salt Sea of our tears, but in the Red Sea of Christ's precious Blood.
...
None are so welcome to that spiritual Canaan as those that swim to it through the Red Sea of their own blood.

Gregory the Great (Gregory I c. 540-603), Preface (Epistle to the Reader), Morals on the Book of Job by S. Gregory the Great: A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Vol. 1, Parts 1 & 2), p. 9:

For as the word of God, by the mysteries which it contains, exercises the understanding of the wise, so usually by what presents itself on the outside, it nurses the simpleminded. It presenteth in open day that wherewith the little ones may be fed; it keepeth in secret that whereby men of a loftier range may be held in suspense of admiration. It is, as it were, a kind of river, if I may so liken it, which is both shallow and deep, wherein both the Lamb may find a footing, and the elephant float at large.