12S THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
Servetus was by no means satisfied with the answer, and wrote back that Calvin made two or three Sons of God ; that the Wisdom of God spoken of by Solomon was allegorical and impersonal ; that regeneration took place in the moment of baptism by water and the spirit, but never in infant baptism. He denied that circumcision corresponded to baptism. He put five new theological questions to Calvin, and asked him to read the fourth chapter on baptism in the manuscript of the Restitutio which he had sent him.^
To these objections Calvin sent another and more lengthy response.^ He again offered further explanation, though he had no time to write whole books for him, and had discussed all these topics in his Institutes.^
So far there is nothing to indicate any disposition in Calvin to injure Servetus. On the contrary we must admire his patience and moderation in giving so much of his precious time to the questions of a troublesome stranger and pronounced opponent. Servetus continued to press Calvin \vith letters, and returned the copy of the Institutes with copious critical objections. " There is hardly a page," says Calvin, " that is not defiled by his vomit." ^
1 " Roqo te per Deum, postquam poUicitus es te paratum reliqua adjicere, si fueris admonitus, doce me prima quce est vera fides, et qualiter ilia a spiritu regenerationis vivificetur. Secundo, an sine promissione possit qiiis justificari. Tertio, qualis sit internits homo, non ex sanguinihus genitus, sed ex Deo. Quarto, quis est homo ille qui a C/iristo alitur in ccena, an vere, an imaginarie. Quinto, quae sit gratia adventus Christi. Annon eousque regnavit tnors ? annon patres omnes fuerunt antea in inferno? Demum te pi-ecor, ne graveris iterum legere quartum librum de Baptismo [in the printed Restitutio it is entitled De Regeneratione superna, et de regno Antichristi, pp. 355-576]. Nam videris eum nondum legisse. Deus misereatur nostri. Amen." Opera, VIII. 486.
2 VIII. 487-495.
^ " Quod me rogas tihi de aliis quoque capitibus respondeam, id facerem, si possem breviter. Neque enim satis divino quid proprie desideres. Magis autem sum occupatus quam ut tibi uni vacet libi-os integros scribere. Delude nihil quceris quod non reperias in mea Institutione, si illinc petere libeat. Quanquam labori non parcerem, si mihi notus esset scopus quo tendis." P. 494.
* " Quoscunque ineos libros nancisci potuit, non destitit insulsis conviciis farcire, ut nullam paginam a suo vomitu puram relinqueref." P. 481. Comp. the French in the fifth footnote.
§ 145. CORRESPONDENCE OF SERVETUS. 729
Calvin sent a final answer to the questions of Servetiis, which is lost, together with a French letter to Frellon, which is preserved.!. This letter is dated Feb. 13, 1546, under his well-known pseudonym of Charles Despeville, and is as follows : —
" Seigneur Jehan, As your last letter was brought to me on my departure, I had no leisure to reply to the enclosure it contained. After my return I use the first moment of my leisure to comply with your desire; not indeed that I have any great hope of proving serviceable to such a man, seeing him disposed as I do. But I will try once more, if there be any means left of bringing him to reason, and this will happen when God shall have so wrougiit in him that he has become altogether another man. Since he has written to me in so proud a spirit, I have been led to write to him more sharply than is my wont, being minded to take liim down a little in his presumption.- But I could not do otherwise. For I assure you there is no lesson he needs so much to learn as humility. Tiiis must come to him through the grace of God, not otherwise. But we, too, ought to lend a helping hand. If God give such grace to him and to us that the present answer will turn to his profit, I shall have cause to rejoice. If he persists, however, in the style he has hitherto seen fit to use, you will only lose your time in soliciting me further in his behalf ; for I have other affairs that concern me more nearly, and I shall make it a matter of conscience not to busy myself further, not doubting that he is a Satan who would divert me from more profitable studies. Let me beg of you, therefore, to be content with what I have already done, unless you see occasion for acting differently."
Frellon sent this letter to Villeneuve by a special messenger, together with a note in which he addresses him as his "dear brother and friend."^
On the same day Calvin wrote the famous letter to Farel already quoted. He had arrived at the settled conviction
1 Calvin's letter to Jean Frellon and Frellon's letter to Servetus, both in French, found their way into the judicial archives of the archbishop of Vienne, and were first published by the Abbe' d'Artigny, Paris, 1749 (in Nouveaux Me'moires (Vhi^toire, tom. II. 70), and independently from a copy of the original, by Mosheim, Helmstadt, 1750 (in his Nem Nnchrichten von Mich. Serveto, pp. 89,00). They are reprinted in Henry, III. 132, and in Calvin's Opera, VIII. 83?> sq.
2 "Je Ihij a;i blen imdu rahhatre un petit de son orgneil, parlant a lit;/ plus dnrement que ma coustume ne parte"
3 On the envelope is written: "A mon bon frere et amy maistre Michel Villanovanus Docteur en Medicine soi/l donne'e resfe presents a Vienne."