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Rise and Establishment of Protestantism at Geneva - James Aitken Wylie

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<strong>and</strong> establish the world on a new basis. The more<br />

fundamental doctrines <strong>of</strong> Christianity became the<br />

object <strong>of</strong> his settled dislike, <strong>and</strong> his most virulent<br />

<strong>at</strong>tack. But it was against the doctrine <strong>of</strong> the Trinity<br />

mainly th<strong>at</strong> his shafts were levelled. Romanism he<br />

had renounced in his youth, but neither did the<br />

Reform<strong>at</strong>ion s<strong>at</strong>isfy his gr<strong>and</strong> ideal.<br />

Christianity, he held, had been lost <strong>at</strong> an early<br />

age, if indeed it ever had been fully promulg<strong>at</strong>ed to<br />

the world. Servetus undertook to restore <strong>and</strong> reinstitute<br />

it.[7] About the year 1546 he wrote to<br />

Calvin from Vienne,?to the effect th<strong>at</strong> the<br />

Reformer had stopped too soon, th<strong>at</strong> he had<br />

preached as yet only a half-Reform<strong>at</strong>ion; <strong>and</strong><br />

modestly <strong>of</strong>fered to initi<strong>at</strong>e him into his new<br />

system, <strong>and</strong> assign him the post <strong>of</strong> leader in th<strong>at</strong><br />

gre<strong>at</strong> movement by which mankind were to be led<br />

into a gr<strong>and</strong>er domain <strong>of</strong> truth. He accompanied his<br />

letter with a volume in MS., in which Calvin<br />

should see, he said, "stupendous <strong>and</strong> unheard-<strong>of</strong><br />

things."[8] The unhappy man had virtually arrived<br />

<strong>at</strong> pantheism, the final goal <strong>of</strong> all who in these high<br />

m<strong>at</strong>ters forsake the p<strong>at</strong>h <strong>of</strong> Divine revel<strong>at</strong>ion.<br />

309

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