Note 17 — BOOK I. FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE TO THE OPENING OF THE CONFERENCE OF POISSY. (1521-1561.)

There are some remarkable pages of M. Guizot’s on this subject in the Musée des Protestants célèbres, art. Calvin. The execution of Michel Servet has furnished the subject of a never-ending discussion. A skilful historian of our time, M. Mignet, has devoted to it a long and learned dissertation. It would be wholly departing from our plan, to enter into these details. We will confine ourselves to the indication of the following points:—1. Servet was not an ordinary heretic; he was a daring pantheist, and outraged the dogma of all the great Christian communities, by saying that the God in three persons was a Cerberus, a monster with three heads. 2. He had been already condemned to death by the Catholic doctors at Vienne, in Dauphiny. 3. The affair was tried, not by Calvin, but by the magistrates of Geneva; and if it be objected, that his advice must have influenced their decision, it must be remembered that the counsels of the other reformed Swiss cantons approved the sentence unanimously. 4. It was of infinite importance to the Reformation, that it should separate its cause clearly from that of an unbeliever like Servet. The (Roman) Catholic church, which this day accuses Calvin of having participated in his condemnation, would have accused him still more, in the sixteenth century, had he solicited for his acquittal.