works preserved by different writers, I transcribe. It was written to Abel Pepin, one of the ministers at Geneva, about six years before he was committed to prison in that city. It shows that even at that time he expected, sooner or later, to die for the cause he had espoused.

6

Although my twelfth epistle to to Calvin (says he) makes it very plainly appear, that the obligation of the Decalogue is vacated, yet I will add one place more, by which you may the better understand the alteration that is made by the coming of Christ; that the law of the Decalogue therefore was abrogated, you will be thoroughly convinced of, if you read one place in the xxxi, of Jeremiah, where the prophet teaches us, that the covenant that God entered into with the fathers of the Jewish nation, when they went out of Egypt, was done away. I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which, my covenant they brake. This was the covenant of the Decalogue; for it is said in 1 Kings 8 and 9, That there were in the ark the two tables of

nant.

stone which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt, viz, the covenant of the Decalogue: hence it was called the ark of the covenant, the tables of the covenant, and the ten words of the covenant. Now this was the form of their entering into covenant; God promised that the Jews should be his people, upon condition that they performed these words or commands, and they engaged to receive God for their LORD, and become his people, upon this condition of keeping these commands. Lo! this is the coveAnd Jeremiah tells us, that this covenant was put an end to in the aforesaid chapter; and Ezekiel in the 16th chapter, and Paul in the 8th of the Hebrews. If God was to receive us now into his favor, upon that condition, we should perish under the same yoke they did, and should come under the curse. That law therefore is abrogated. God does not now take us to be his own people under that covenant, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, his beloved Son alone. Hence you may perceive how your gospel is confounded with the law; your gospel is without the one God, without the true faith, without good works. For the one God, you have a three-headed Cerberus;

for the true faith, you have a fatal dream; and as for good works, you say they are empty pictures; the faith of Christ, with you, is mere paint, without efficacy. Mankind in your account, are no more than stupid blocks; and God, in your system, is no other than a monster of arbitrary fate. Regeneration by water, which is from heaven, you are so far from acknowledging, that you look upon it only as a fable. You shut men out of the kingdom of heaven, by excluding us from it, as an imaginary happiness. Woe to you! woe! woe! I would fain have you so well apprized of your real interest and duty, by this my third letter, that you may get a better way of thinking; especi-. ally since you are not likely to have any such advice from me hereafter. It is perhaps far from agreeable to you that I should concern myself with Michael's war in the Apocalypse, or that I should desire you to look into it: but do so much as consider that passage narrowly, and you will soon perceive who the men were to be, who would engage in that quarrel, viz. such as were resolved to expose their lives unto the death, for the blood and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Nothing is more certain than that angels are spoken of in the scriptures. Can any

thing be more plain from thence, than that the church of Christ has been vanquished for many years since ? Does not the vision there relate to futurity, as John himself asserts? Who is that accuser there, who is said to accuse us before, because of the transgression of the laws and precepts? He saith that the accusation. was to be made before the battle, and the time is at hand, as he says, Who are they who shall get the victory of the beast, not receiving his character, or mark upon them? That I must die for the cause I have espoused, I certainly know; but I am not at all cast down upon that account, since by that I shall be a disciple, made like his master. This indeed I am really concerned for, that by your means I cannot have an opportunity of correcting several places in my writings which are in Calvin's hands. Adieu; and don't expect to receive any more letters from me. I will stand upon my guard; I will wait and see what the LORD will say unto me; for he will come, he will certainly come, and will not tarry.'

CHAPTER VI.

A SUMMARY VIEW OF THE OPINIONS OF

SERVETUS.

Sect. 1. On the trinity, and the person of Christ. Sect. 2. On Baptism, original Sin, the distinction between the Law and Gospel, and Justification. Sect. S. On the sense of Prophecy, Sect. 4. On christian Liberty.

THE opinions of Servetus were no doubt greatly misrepresented by his enemies. It is not easy to ascertain what were his precise views on some points; his leading doctrines however are well known. Of these the following is an out

line.

Our enquiry is not so much whether his opinions were true or false, as it is whether there was any thing in them, that could justify Calvin and his associates in condemning a man of piety and virtue to a most painful and ignominious death. In some things we think he was mistaken, and who can say he is free from mistakes; but we judge his most leading doctrines