About that time a stranger, whose proceedings were rather mysterious, used to appear at rare intervals in the little circles of Paris. Many persons spoke highly of him. They said, he could not be reproached with any immoral tendencies, while his subtle understanding, his brilliant genius, his profound knowledge of natural science, and his fiery imagination, seemed as if they would make him one of the most surprising and influential leaders of the epoch. This was Michael Servetus, a man of the same age as Calvin. Born at Villenueva in Arragon, he had studied the law at Toulouse, and afterwards published a daring work entitled, On the Errors of the Trinity. He put himself forward as a teacher of truth and a thorough reformer. The great mysteries of faith were to give way to a certain pantheism, enveloped in mystical and Sabellian forms. It was not Roman-catholicism alone which he desired to reform, but the evangelical reformation also, substituting for its scriptural and practical character a philosophic and rationalistic tendency.

In order to accomplish this transformation of protestantism, Servetus began by associating with the reformers of German Switzerland and of Germany. Œcolampadius, having examined him, declared that he could not count him a christian unless he acknowledged the Son as partaking through all eternity of the real Godhead of the Father. Melanchthon was alarmed at hearing his doctrines: 'His imagination is confused,' he said; 'his ideas are obscure. He possesses many marks of a fanatical spirit.[177] He raves on the subjects of Justification and the Trinity.... O God! what tragedies this question will occasion among our posterity!'[178]

We may easily understand the painful impression Servetus made on these two men, the most tolerant of the sixteenth century. He was, as we have said, a mystic rationalist; but rationalism and protestantism, which many persons confound together, are two opposite poles. Nothing excited the indignation of the reformers more than this pride of human reason which pretends unaided to explain God, and to accomplish without his help the moral renovation of man. The Spanish doctor, finding himself thus rejected by the German divines, quitted those parts sore vexed and exclaiming: 'May the Lord confound all the tyrants of the Church! Amen.'[179] He went to Paris under the name of Michael de Villeneuve.

Servetus had an object in going to France. If he succeeded in planting his standard in that mighty country, near that university which had been for so many ages the queen of intelligence, his triumph (he thought) would be secure. He willingly left Germany to the Germans. That French nation which has the prerogative of universality, which succeeds in everything, which is so intelligent, so frank, so communicative, so practical and so active—he will select to be the organ of the second Reformation. Servetus thought the French reformers more daring than those of Saxony. He had heard of a young doctor of great ability, who desired to carry the reform farther than Luther, and he thought he had found his man. But he was mistaken; that man was far above his empty theories.

=CALVIN AND SERVETUS ON THE TRINITY.=

Calvin could not and would not have any other God than Him who gives us life, who has ransomed us, and who sanctifies us—the Father, God above us; the Son, God for us; the Holy Ghost, God in us. This threefold relation with God, which Scripture revealed to him and which entirely satisfied his inward longings, forced him to recognise a difference in God; but on the other hand, unity being essential to the Deity, he was bound to maintain it at any cost, and he thus felt himself constrained to embrace the idea of a divine Trinity. Against this doctrine Servetus levelled his bitterest sarcasms. The Spaniard rejected what he denominated an 'imaginary Trinity;' he called those who believed in it 'tritheists,' or even atheists, and abused them in coarse language. 'Jesus is man,' he said; 'the Godhead was communicated to Him by grace, but He is not God by nature. The Father alone is God in that sense.'[180] He invited Calvin to a conference; puffed up and charmed with his own system, he fancied himself certain to convince the reformer, and flattered himself with the hope of making him his fellow-labourer.

The task was not an easy one. The object of the Reformation was to raise a spiritual temple, wherein troubled souls might find a refuge; and Calvin saw rash hands presuming to make it a receptacle for every error, and, in his own energetic language, 'a den for murdering souls.' He stood forth, therefore, to maintain the apostolic doctrine, and contended that Christ, who called himself the only Son of God, was a son, not like believers, in consequence of adoption; not like the angels, because of their communion with the Lord; but in the proper sense: and that if the son of a man has the nature of a man like his father, Jesus, the only Son of God, has in like manner the nature of God.

It was a question that seriously occupied many minds at this period. Servetus did not stand alone; other doctors, as Hetzer, Denck, Campanus, and Joris, had professed analogous errors. One universal cry was heard among the reformers when they saw Christ's divinity attacked. Luther had declared that 'this little spark would cause a great conflagration;'[181] Zwingle had demanded that 'this false, wicked, and pernicious doctrine' should be opposed by every means;[182] and even the moderate Bucer, forgetting his christian gentleness, had gone so far as to declare from the pulpit that 'a man like Servetus deserved to have his bowels plucked out and his body torn to pieces.'[183] Calvin resolved to accept Servetus's invitation. These two young men, born in the same year, gifted each of them with marvellous genius, unshakeable in their convictions, are about to enter the lists. What blows they will deal each other! What a struggle! Which will come off conqueror? If Luther, Zwingle, and Bucer are so animated, what will Calvin be? He was the one who showed the most moderate sentiments with regard to Servetus. Alas! why did he not continue so to the last? 'I will do all in my power to cure Servetus,' he said.[184] 'If I show myself in public, I know that I expose my life; but I will spare no pains to bring him to such sentiments, that all pious men may be able to take him affectionately by the hand.'[185] Justice requires that we should take account of these feelings of Calvin with regard to Servetus.

=A DISCUSSION APPOINTED.=

The discussion was therefore resolved upon, and a certain number of friends were invited to be present. The time and place were settled, and when the day arrived, Calvin quitted De la Forge's house, and, proceeding down the Rue St. Martin to the Rue St. Antoine, found himself at the appointed hour at a house in this latter street, which had been selected for the colloquy. Servetus had not come, and Calvin waited for him; still the Spaniard did not appear, and the Frenchman was patient. What was the cause of his delay? Had Lieutenant-criminal Morin obtained information of the meeting, and was he preparing to catch the two young leaders by one cast of his net? After waiting for some time to no purpose, Calvin withdrew.[186] Servetus, who lived as a catholic in the midst of catholics, and made no scruple of taking part in the worship of the Roman church, probably feared that a public discussion with Calvin would make him known, and expose him to serious danger.[187]