Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

416
secured, in 1559, through a majority of the Council, at one time, the
admission of three hundred of these refugees, mostly Frenchmen.
The Patriots disliked also the protectorate of Bern, although Bern never
favored the strict theology and discipline of Calvin.
2. The Libertines f732 or Spirituels, as they called themselves, were far
worse than the Patriots. They formed the opposite extreme to the severe
discipline of Calvin. He declares that they were the most pernicious of all
the sects that appeared since the time of the ancient Gnostics and
Manichaeans, and that they answer the prophetic description in the Second
Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of Jude. He traces their immediate origin to
Coppin of Yssel and Quintin of Hennegau, in the Netherlands, and to an
ex-priest, Pocquet or Pocques, who spent some time in Geneva, and
wanted to get a certificate from Calvin; but Calvin saw through the man
and refused it. They revived the antinomian doctrines of the mediaeval sect
of the “Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit,” a branch of the Beghards,
who had their headquarters at Cologne and the Lower Rhine, and
emancipated themselves not only from the Church, but also from the laws
of morality. f733
The Libertines described by Calvin were antinomian pantheists. They
confounded the boundaries of truth and error, of right and wrong. Under
the pretext of the freedom of the spirit, they advocated the unbridled
license of the flesh. Their spiritualism ended in carnal materialism. They
taught that there is but one spirit, the Spirit of God, who lives in all
creatures, which are nothing without him. “What I or you do,” said
Quintin, “is done by God, and what God does, we do; for he is in us.” Sin
is a mere negation or privation, yea, an idle illusion which disappears as
soon as it is known and disregarded. Salvation consists in the deliverance
from the phantom of sin. There is no Satan, and no angels, good or bad.
They denied the truth of the gospel history. The crucifixion and
resurrection of Christ have only a symbolical meaning to show us that sin
does not exist for us.
The Libertines taught the community of goods and of women, and elevated
spiritual marriage above legal marriage, which is merely carnal and not
binding. The wife of Ameaux justified her wild licentiousness by the
doctrine of the communion of saints, and by the first commandment of God
given to man: “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth (Gen. 1:28).