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AND THEIR REFUTATION. 33
They then had a long disputation. Servetus asserted that the
Scriptures alone were sufficient to decide Articles of Faith, without
reference either to Fathers or Councils, and, in fact, that was
Calvin s own doctrine also, especially in his disputes
with the
Catholics. He was, therefore, very hard pressed by Servetus,
who explained the texts adduced to prove the Trinity and the Di
vinity of Jesus Christ, after his own fashion, especially as he him
self rejecting Fathers and Councils in the explanation of that
text of St. John (x, 30),
" The
Father and I am one" said that
all were wrong in proving by this, the unity of essence between
the Father and Son, as it only proved the perfect uniformity of
the will of Christ with that of his Father. When he found,
therefore, that Servetus obstinately held his Antitrinitarian doc
trines, he laid another plan to destroy him. He sent his pro
positions to the University of the Zuinglian Cantons, and, on
their condemnation, he caused him to be burned alive on the 27th
of October, 1553, as we have already narrated (Chap, xi, art. iii,
sec. i, n. 67) (4). This cursed sect, however, did not expire with
Servetus, for his writings and disciples carried it into Russia,
Wallachia, Moravia, and Silesia ; it was afterwards split into
thirty-two divisions, and in these provinces the Antitrinitarians
are more numerous than the Lutherans or Calvinists.
(4) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 14 ; Van Ranst, p. 320.