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

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they were the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit of the one true, eternal,
blessed Godhead.
He labored under the fanatical delusion that he was called by Providence to
reform the Church and to restore the Christian religion. He deemed himself
wiser than all the fathers, schoolmen, and reformers. He supported his
delusion by a fanciful interpretation of the last and darkest book of the
Bible.
Calvin and Farel saw, in his refusal to recant, only the obstinacy of an
incorrigible heretic and blasphemer. We must recognize in it the strength of
his conviction. He forgave his enemies; he asked the pardon even of
Calvin. Why should we not forgive him? He had a deeply religious nature.
We must honor his enthusiastic devotion to the Scriptures and to the
person of Christ. From the prayers and ejaculations inserted in his book,
and from his dying cry for mercy, it is evident that he worshipped Jesus
Christ as his Lord and Saviour. f1203
§ 157. CALVIN’S DEFENCE OF THE DEATH PENALTY FOR
HERETICS.
The public sentiment, Catholic and Protestant, as we have seen, approved
of the traditional doctrine, that obstinate heretics should be made harmless
by death, and continued unchanged down to the close of the seventeenth
century.
But there were exceptions. As in the case of the execution of the Spanish
Priscillianists in the fourth century, the genuine spirit of Christianity and
humanity raised a cry of indignation and horror through the mouths of St.
Ambrose of Milan, and St. Martin of Tours; so there were not a few in the
sixteenth century who protested against the burning of Servetus. Most of
these—Lelio Socino, Renato, Curio, Biandrata, Alciati, Gribaldo, Gentile,
Ochino, and Castellio—were Italian refugees and free-thinkers who
sympathized more or less with his heretical opinions. It was especially three
professors in the University of Basel Borrhaus (Cellarius), Curio, and
Castellio—who were suspected at Geneva of being followers of Servetus.
For the same reason some Anabaptists, like David Joris, who lived at that
time in Basel under the assumed name of John von Bruck, took his part.
Anonymous libels in prose and verse appeared against Calvin. He was
denounced as a new pope and inquisitor, and Geneva, heretofore an asylum
of religious liberty, as a new Rome, f1204 A hundred Servetuses seemed to