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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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place whtefre he Jay the night before * He lodged at the Rose Inn , designing to hire a boat the next day , in order to go to Zurich . He probably took the way of Geneva rather than that of Piedmont * in hopes that , if he should be discovered , the Protestants would be more merciful to him than the Papists
but if he really had ever entertained such hopes , he very soon found hiniself greatly and grievously mistaken . While he was waiting for a boat to cross the lake , Calvin , by some iiieahs , got intelligence of his arrival ; and although it was on a Sunday 9 he prevailed on the Chief Syndic to arrest and imprison him *
On that day , by the laws of Geneva , no person could be ar ^ rested , except for a capital crime : but this difficulty was leasily removed ; for Calvin affirmed that Servetus was a heretic , and that heresy was a capital crime . He was therefore arrested , and cast into prison , and treated more cruelly by these pious Protestants than he had been by the Woody Papists . There
were found about him * and taken from him , his prosecutors fcay 97 pieces of gold ( but he himself said 20 O ) , a gold chain , weighing about twenty crowns , and six gold rings . It was necessary that some person should now appear as his accuser pr prosecutor . Calvin employed one of his own family , a . Nicholas de la Fontaine * who , under the direction of Calvin
exhibited thirty-eight articles against him , on which he desired fee might Be examined . His trial began Aug . 14 J after which he wa , s frequently called to the bar , sometimes day after day #
for several days together . They raked into his life and actions , for the purpose of multiplying their accusations ; and every time he appeared , they generally laid something new to his charge ; but abusing Calvin " was almost always Cne of the articles asrainst him . The chief accusation related to his
notions of the Trinity ( for he held that Christ , in Scripture , is never called the Son of God , but only as he is a man ; and that he was not the Son of God from eternity , but only from the time of his incarnation ) , and his denying infant baptism . It was Calvin that furnished La Fontaine with evidence , such as
it was , against the prisoner ; and he expressly avows that the said La Fontaine demanded justice against him ci by his advice ; " nor did he blush tb say , ** I ordered it so , that a party should be found to accuse him , not denying that the action was drawn up by my advice * " How honourable , and how humane !
On the 21 st of August Calvin appeared in court , attended by all the ministers of Geneva , and disputed with the prisoner on the words // person" and cc -hypostasis ; " which could answer no other end but to bias the Court , and so promote the !> risoiier ' s destruction . After Calvin and his attendants were
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Prtef Account of Sferveiut * $ Q 9
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1806, page 509, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1729/page/5/
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