THE REV. D. SIDEY ON CALVIN AND SERVETUS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3506, 2 October 1882, Page 2

THE REV. D. SIDEY ON CALVIN AND SERVETUS.

The lecture delivered by the Rev. D. Sidey in St. Paul's Presbyterian Church last "evening on the question " In what way was Calvin responsible for the burning of Servetus ?" attracted a fair attendance. The lecturer commenced by reviewing the career of Calvin for the few years preceding the tragedy, during which time Calvia had " carried on his great work" in Geneva with such " beneficient consequences, both moral, intellectual, and spiritual." The springing up of the " licentious libertine section " (Pantheists) was next touched upon, and a narrative given of some of the circumstances that led up to the sentence of death at the stake being pronounced upon Servetus, who belonged to tbe Pantheistic party. Servetus was described as " an ambitious man with a defective judgment," who_ spent fully twenty years of his life in wandering about " giving vent to his fancies and levities," believing it was his mission to establish everything on a new and improved basis. It was, however, against the doctrine of the Trinity, which Servetus styled a "three-beaded Cerberus," or hound of hell, that his shafts were more particularly le7elled. The Catholic Church Servetus had long been opposed to, but Calvin's reformation did not go far enough to suit him, and he wrote to Calvin saying that the latter had stopped to soon in his work of reform, and offering himself to lead mankind into the greater domain of truth. In a book which accompanied this letter Calvin saw Servetus'a " great folly " — his " delirious fancies"— and be warned Servetus forthwith not to come to Geneva, or he (Calvin) would not allow him to depart thence again with his life, Calvin apprehending that the presence of such a man might endanger the progress of tbe Reformation. Servetus subsequently published his book privately, and this led to his arrest, and he was " sentenced to be burnt to a small cinder," but on that occasion he escaped from the hands of his executioners. Netwithstanding Calvin's previous warning Servetus fled to Geneva for protection, thus " thrusting himself into the way of immediate destruction," as the reformer had put it. When Calvin learned of Servetus's appearance in Geneva he did what the constitutional law demanded of him, and gave information of his presence there, and later on gave evidence against him before the Council. Calvin, however, did not wish for a conviction; he sought rather for a recantation. The Council found tbe charges against Servetus were true, and he was convicted—-not on

Calvio's indictment, but on one drawn up by the Attorney-General of Geneva — the charges being not merely heresy but sedition and treason against society ; in fact he was a political rather than an ecclesiastical criminal. Every effort of Calvin would have been in vain to save Servetus, who now stood condemned by what was at that time virtually the whole of Protestant Christendom. In summing up, the rev. lecturer referred to some ot the good results that had followed upon the reformation instituted by that man who had ever since been consistently maligned and villified by various writers from Gibbon down to Dr. Willis, and concluded by expressing the belief that had it not been for Calvin and Calvinism both civil and religious liberty, as well as education for the masses, would still have remained unknown to the world.