a certain show of folly, seeing that you would have a man do that which you must know he cannot do. You speak of free acts, yet tell us there is no such thing as free action. And it is absurd in you to derive the servile will you abet from this: that it is God who acts in us. Truly God does act in us, and in such wise that we act freely. He acts in us so that we understand and will and pursue. Even as all things consist essentially in God, so do all acts proceed essentially from him. But the power in us to do is one thing, the necessity of doing is another; and though God may deal with us as the potter deals with his clay, it does not follow that we are nothing more than clay, and have no power of action in ourselves.' (Ib f. 79, b, et 'Epist. ad Calvinum,' xxii.)

Another of the most essential doctrines underlying Pauline Christianity, original sin, is made little of by Servetus. Although I spent much time in reading his books, I do not appear to have made a note of more than one or two passages in which he refers to that subject; and when he does, it is by the way rather than more particularly. It is on the necessity of faith in Christ, as he understands the Sonship, that he dwells continually, making of this the prime factor in his scheme of restored Christianity. This faith it is,' says he, 'that first makes us aware of our poverty, of our misery; for if we believe that Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, we already assume that the world is sinful, and requires saving' ('Chr.

Rest.' p. 349). He does not refer particularly to what is called the Fall,' neither does he say very pointedly how the world came into the sorry plight in which he admits that he finds it. The reason usually assigned must have appeared unsatisfactory to an understanding so clear as that of Servetus, when unclouded by fancies of his own creating; but we can hardly think he mends matters by ascribing the origin of sin to heaven and the rebellion of the angels, as he does, instead of to the earth and Adam's disobedience. Far from maintaining that the heart of man is corrupt and evil by nature, he holds that the cause of good works and well-doing is proper and spontaneous to the individual, who is only answerable for his own sin, not for the sin of another. Faith in Christ, therefore, as the naturally-begotten Son of God; Charity, in which are comprised all the virtues, and a good life, in so far as we can make it out, form the backbone of Servetus's Christianity, as it is unfolded in his earliest work on 'Current Misconceptions of the Trinity.'1

1 At the end of the copy of the 'De Trin. Error.,' which Alwörden describes in his Historia Michaelis Serveti, now in the National Library at Paris, there is a MS. Refutation of the views of the writer, which Tollin ascribes with great show of probability to Bucer, who, as we know, was personally acquainted with Servetus. Of this Refutation (Confutatio) Tollin has given an extended analysis in Richm und Köstlin's Theologische Studien und Kritiken für 1875, S. 711.

CHAPTER VI.

THE AUTHORITIES OF BASLE TAKE NOTICE OF HIS BOOK.

HE WRITES TWO DIALOGUES BY WAY OF APPENDIX TO IT AND LEAVES SWITZERLAND.

FAILING to make any impression on the Swiss and German Reformers whose countenance he had been so anxious to gain, we have seen Servetus in his letter to Ecolampadius declaring his readiness to quit Basle, to which he must have returned, if it were only not said that he went as a fugitive, and giving something like an engagement to his correspondent to review and, reviewing, to modify or retract some things he had said in his book. That some such engagement was given we conclude from the letter of colampadius to the magistrates of Basle, to which we shall refer immediately, and from which it would seem that it was through the forbearance, if not even the more friendly interference, of the Reformer that our author escaped arrest and imprisonment at this time. The seven books or chapters on erroneous ideas of the Trinity had not fallen stillborn from the press; neither had the presence of the writer in Basle passed unobserved. The book being seen as heretical in the

highest degree by the ministers, the presence of its writer among them was felt as matter of grievance by both clergy and laity; so that the Civic Council held it within the scope of their duties to take notice of the innovator, of whom they heard so much that was discreditable, and, by laying hands on him, either to make

him pay in person then and there, or to send him away, like an infected bale, to spread his poison elsewhere.

Previous to acting, however, they thought it would be well to have the opinion of their chief Pastor, Ecolampadius, on what had best be done, and so requested him to advise with them on the subject. He replied by a long letter in which he recapitulates the chief topics discussed by Servetus in his treatise. He, Ecolampadius, will do what he can to place the good man's views before them,-if indeed he may venture to speak of the writer as a good man; for it seems that he strives at times as much to darken the light as to enlighten the darkness, mixing up incongruities rashly and not seldom stopping short of contradicting himself. He opposes the orthodox doctors continually, and uses certain words in an arbitrary and unusual sense. He denies the coeternity of the Father and the Son, a doctrine hitherto held sacred by all the Christian churches; and only recognises the sonship from the moment of the engenderment, or rather of the birth of Christ. He even derides the idea of God having a son from eternity, and asks

whence the heavenly father had his wife, or whether he were of both sexes in himself? He will only recognise the eternity of the Son as an Idea in the divine mind: the Son was to be, but was not yet, until he appeared in the flesh. He will by no means concede that the Word of St. John was the Christ; yet he speaks of three persons in the one God; but it is with glozing and an arbitrary meaning attached to the word person, and with reasonings which, if they sometimes make for his views, are at other times opposed to them, he neither thinking nor speaking as do the apostles, and wresting the words of the fathers-of Tertullian and Irenæus especially-from the interpretation commonly put upon them.

Along with all this and much more that is objectionable, there are still some things in the book that are good; nevertheless as a whole it could not but offend me. God grant that the writer acknowledge the rashness which has led him to speak so unadvisedly as he has done of matters which transcend our human intelligence, and that he may live to amend what he has said. As to the book, it would be well perhaps that it were either totally suppressed, or were read by those only who are not likely to be hurt by objectionable writings. The errors he has fallen into acknowledged, he will retract in his writings-retractârit scriptis. Perhaps he was not himself aware of their extent, or they were not seen by him as of such importance as they are in fact. But I leave all to