710 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
of Calvin, gave the advice that Servetus, whom their own CEcohxmpadius had declared a most dangerous man, be deprived of the power to harm the Church, if all efforts to convert him should fail. Six years afterwards the Council of Basel, with the consent of the clergy and the University, ordered the body of David Joris, a chiliastic Anabaptist who had lived there under a false name (and died Aug. 25, 1556), to be dug from the grave and burned, with his likeness and books, by the hangman before a large multitude (1559) .^
Bern, which had advised moderation in the affair of Bolsec two years earlier, judged more severely in the case of Servetus, because he "had reckoned himself free to call in question all the essential points of our religion," and expressed the wish that the Council of Geneva might have prudence and strength to deliver the Churches from "this pest." Thirteen years after the death of Servetus, the Council of Bern executed Valentino Gentile by the sword (Sept. 10, 1566) for an error similar to but less obnoxious than that of Servetus, and scarcely a voice was raised in disapproval of the sentence.^
The Reformers of French Switzerland went further than those of German Switzerland. Farel defended death by fire, and feared that Calvin in advising a milder punishment was guided by the feelings of a friend against his bitterest foe. Beza wrote a special work in defence of the execution of Servetus, whom he characterized as " a monstrous compound of mere impiety and horrid blasphemy." ^ Peter Martyr called him "a genuine son of the devil," whose "pestiferous and detestable doctrines" and "intolerable blasphemies" justified the severe sentence of the magistracy.'*
1 See Nippold, Ueher Leben, Lehre und Sekte des David Joris, in the " Zeitschrif t fur historische Theologie," 1863, No. I., and 1864, No. IV.
2 See above, § 131, p. 658.
2 " Monstrum ex mera impietate horrendisque blasphemiis conflatum." Vita Calv. (Annul. XXI. 148).
^ See the whole passage in Trechsel's Zusdtze to vol. I,
§ 139. PROTESTAXT INTOLERANCE. 711
Craxmkr.
The English Reformers were not behmd those of the Continent in the matter of intolerance. Several years before the execution of Servetus, Archbishop Cranmer had persuaded the reluctant young King Edward VI. to sign the death-warrant of two Anabaptists — one a woman, called Joan Bocher of Kent, and the other a foreigner from Holland, George van Pare; the former was burnt May 2, 1550, the latter, April 6, 1551.
The only advocates of toleration in the sixteenth century were Anabaptists and Antitrinitarians, Avho were themselves sufferers from persecution. Let us give them credit for their humanity.
Gradual Triumph of Toleratiox and Liberty.
The reign of intolerance continued to the end of the seventeenth century. It was gradually undermined during the eighteenth century, and demolished by the combined influences of Protestant Dissenters, as the Anabaptists, Socinians, Arminians, Quakers, Presbyterians, Independents, of Anglican Latitudinarians, and of philosophers, like Bayle, Grotius, Locke, Leibnitz ; nor should we forget Voltaire and Frederick the Great, who were unbelievers, but sincere and most influential advocates of religious toleration ; nor Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison in America. Protestant Holland and Protestant England took the lead in the legal recognition of the principles of civil and religious liberty, and the Constitution of the United States completed the theory by putting all Christian denominations on a parity before the law and guaranteeing them the full enjoyment of equal rights.
Hand in hand with the growth of tolerance went the zeal for prison reform, the abolition of torture and cruel punishments, the abrogation of the slave trade, serfdom, and slavery, the improvement of the condition of the poor and miser-
712 THE KEFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
able, and similar movements of philanthropy, which are the late but genuine outgrowth of the spirit of Christianity.