Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. - Revelation 3:4
Did John Calvin defile his garments in toasting Michael Servetus?
“Neither God nor his Spirit have counselled such an action. Christ did not treat those who negated him that way.” - Italian poet Camillo Renato on the Servetus execution
“To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man.” - French humanist Sébastien Chateillon on the Servetus execution
“I consider it a serious matter to kill men because they are in error on some question of scriptural interpretation, when we know that even the elect ones may be led astray into error.” - Michael Servetus
In 1908 a monument to Servetus was erected in the French city of Annemasse, some three miles [5 km] from the spot where he died. An inscription reads: “Michel Servetus, . . . geographer, physician, physiologist, contributed to the welfare of humanity by his scientific discoveries, his devotion to the sick and the poor, and the indomitable independence of his intelligence and his conscience. . . . His convictions were invincible. He made a sacrifice of his life for the cause of the truth.”
And to try to bail himself out of hot water Calvin says... "Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime and guilty as they are. There is no question here of man's authority; it is God who speaks, and clear it is what law he will have kept in the church, even to the end of the world. Wherefore does he demand of us a so extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for His glory."
It seemed like Calvin himself would pay for such criminal deeds as his health receded in his fifties.
Fatally ill, and with blood flowing from his mouth, the 54 year-old pastor-theologian was carried to Saint Pierre in a chair. He was a man acquainted with pain. He suffered from terrible hemorrhoids, asthma, kidney stones, pulmonary tuberculosis, and gout. Fever was a consistent companion, and now he had ruptured blood vessels in his lungs due to his violent coughing spells. This same month he wrote of his tribulations to the doctors of Montpellier:
"But at that time [20 years ago] I was not attacked by gout, knew nothing of the stone or the gravel, was not tormented with the gripings of colic nor afflicted with piles nor threatened with haemorrhages. At present all these enemies charge me like troops. As soon as I recovered from a quartan fever, I was taken with severe and acute pains in my calves, which, after being partly relieved, returned a second and then third time. At last they turned into a disease of the joints, which spread from my feet to my knees. An ulcer in the haemorrhoid veins long tortured me ..." - John Calvin
I think Calvin messed up big time in having Servetus executed. Possibly even to the extent to his immortal soul.
Did John Calvin defile his garments in toasting Michael Servetus?
“Neither God nor his Spirit have counselled such an action. Christ did not treat those who negated him that way.” - Italian poet Camillo Renato on the Servetus execution
“To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man.” - French humanist Sébastien Chateillon on the Servetus execution
“I consider it a serious matter to kill men because they are in error on some question of scriptural interpretation, when we know that even the elect ones may be led astray into error.” - Michael Servetus
In 1908 a monument to Servetus was erected in the French city of Annemasse, some three miles [5 km] from the spot where he died. An inscription reads: “Michel Servetus, . . . geographer, physician, physiologist, contributed to the welfare of humanity by his scientific discoveries, his devotion to the sick and the poor, and the indomitable independence of his intelligence and his conscience. . . . His convictions were invincible. He made a sacrifice of his life for the cause of the truth.”
And to try to bail himself out of hot water Calvin says... "Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime and guilty as they are. There is no question here of man's authority; it is God who speaks, and clear it is what law he will have kept in the church, even to the end of the world. Wherefore does he demand of us a so extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for His glory."
It seemed like Calvin himself would pay for such criminal deeds as his health receded in his fifties.
Fatally ill, and with blood flowing from his mouth, the 54 year-old pastor-theologian was carried to Saint Pierre in a chair. He was a man acquainted with pain. He suffered from terrible hemorrhoids, asthma, kidney stones, pulmonary tuberculosis, and gout. Fever was a consistent companion, and now he had ruptured blood vessels in his lungs due to his violent coughing spells. This same month he wrote of his tribulations to the doctors of Montpellier:
"But at that time [20 years ago] I was not attacked by gout, knew nothing of the stone or the gravel, was not tormented with the gripings of colic nor afflicted with piles nor threatened with haemorrhages. At present all these enemies charge me like troops. As soon as I recovered from a quartan fever, I was taken with severe and acute pains in my calves, which, after being partly relieved, returned a second and then third time. At last they turned into a disease of the joints, which spread from my feet to my knees. An ulcer in the haemorrhoid veins long tortured me ..." - John Calvin
I think Calvin messed up big time in having Servetus executed. Possibly even to the extent to his immortal soul.
