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

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the moment of baptism by water and the spirit, but never in infant baptism.
He denied that circumcision corresponded to baptism. He put five new
theological questions to Calvin, and asked him to read the fourth chapter
on baptism in the manuscript of the Restitutio which he had sent him. f1072
To these objections Calvin sent another and more lengthy response. f1073 He
again offered further explanation, though he had no time to write whole
books for him, and had discussed all these topics in his Institutes. f1074
So far there is nothing to indicate any disposition in Calvin to injure
Servetus. On the contrary we must admire his patience and moderation in
giving so much of his precious time to the questions of a troublesome
stranger and pronounced opponent. Servetus continued to press Calvin
with letters, and returned the copy of the Institutes with copious critical
objections. “There is hardly a page,” says Calvin, “that is not defiled by his
vomit.” f1075
Calvin sent a final answer to the questions of Servetus, which is lost,
together with a French letter to Frellon, which is preserved. f1076 This letter
is dated Feb. 13, 1546, under his well-known pseudonym of Charles
Despeville, and is as follows:—
“Seigneur Jehan, As your last letter was brought to me on my
departure, I had no leisure to reply to the enclosure it contained.
After my return I use the first moment of my leisure to comply with
your desire; not indeed that I have any great hope of proving
serviceable to such a man, seeing him disposed as I do. But I will
try once more, if there be any means left of bringing him to reason,
and this will happen when God shall have so wrought in him that he
has become altogether another man. Since he has written to me in
so proud a spirit, I have been led to write to him more sharply than
is my wont, being minded to take him down a little in his
presumption. f1077 But I could not do otherwise. For I assure you
there is no lesson he needs so much to learn as humility. This must
come to him through the grace of God, not otherwise. But we, too,
ought to lend a helping hand. If God give such grace to him and to
us that the present answer will turn to his profit, I shall have cause
to rejoice. If he persists, however, in the style he has hitherto seen
fit to use, you will only lose your time in soliciting me further in his
behalf; for I have other affairs that concern me more nearly, and I
shall make it a matter of conscience not to busy myself further, not