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at the very time that Melancthon was engaged in framing the Augsburg Confession . The extent to which Cam pan us carried his opinions respecting the person of Christ is unknown . Sandius classes him among the Ariaris . He is supposed to have died about the year 1532 . Claudius AUobrox ^ or Claude the Savoyard , was a zealous propagator of Antitrinitarian sentiments about the year 1530 , and is said to have excited great commotions in Switzerland and the neighbouring states by his
opposition to the doctrine of our Lord ' s divinity . He contended that the Father was the only true God , and wholly rejected the doctrine of Three Persons in the Godhead . He maintained likewise that the Scriptures had been corrupted by the orthodox , and suggested that , instead of & £ <><; yv 6 \ vy * q > the word was God , ( John i . 1 , ) the Evangelist probably wrote &eov ?? v o kayo " s , the word was God ' s . This conjecture , though by no means destitute of plausibility , is wholly unsupported by external evidence . It was revived by Samuel Crellius , from whom it is commonly supposed to have originated ; but having the authority of no manuscript or version in its favour , it meets with few advocates among the Unitarians of the present day .
While Claudius Allobrox was employed in disseminating the doctrine of the Divine Unity in Switezrland and Germany , another able and zealous friend of the same cause appeared in the person of Michael ServeHis * This celebrated Unitarian Confessor was born A . D . 1508 , according to some of his biographers , at Villanova , a town of Arragon in Spain ; according to others , at Tudela in Navarre . He received the rudiments of his education at a monastery in his native province , after which he devoted himself to the
study of the law at the University of Toulouse , which was then in deservedly high celebrity as a place of education among the members of the legal profession . But having heard of the breaking out of the Reformation , he betook himself to the study of the Scriptures , in the perusal of which he found many things at variance with the com m on ly « -received faith . This discovery had such a powerful effect upon his mind , that he resolved to abandon the profession for which his friends had destined him , and devote himself to the
dissemination of purer views of Christianity . He commenced his labours in the South of France ; but finding that his efforts were not attended with the success which he had anticipated , on account of the opposition of the priesthood in that country , he resolved to proceed to Germany , where greater freedom of opinion was allowed , and where the cause of the Reformation had already made considerable progress . Having left Toulouse , therefore , where he had been resident about three years , he travelled , by way of Lyons and Geneva , to Basil in Switzerland . During his stay at Basil he had several
religious discussions with CEcolampadius , in which he argued against the doctrine of two natures in the person of Christ , denied that Jesus pre-existed as the Son of God , and contended that the Jewish prophets uniformly speak of the Son of God in the future tense . An idle story was raised and propagated by the enemies of Servetus , that he visited Africa , and derived his religious notions from the Jews and Turks residing in that country : but no one was ever able to say whether it was from France or Spain that he passed over
into Africa , and indeed the whole story was got up in so bungling a manner , as to furnish abundant materials for its own refutation . To this disposition , on the part of his contemporaries , to rank him among Jews and Mahometans , Servetu $ alludes more than once in his own writings . *• Some , " says he , are scandalized at ray calling Christ the prophet . Because they happen not themselves to apply to him this epithet , they fancy that all who do so are chargeable with Judaism and Mahometanism , regardless of the fact that the
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Biographical Notices of Eminent Continentui Unitarians . 327
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1831, page 327, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2597/page/39/
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