The REASON for this schism in the Body -
Servetus was sentenced to death by Calvin in agreement with the RCC because he was against infant baptism and he had a differing view of the Triune Godhead ... believing in Incarnational Sonship rather than Origen's "eternal generation".
Calvin, who wrote his "Institutes" when he had only been saved two years .... "a novice" [1Tim 3:6,7]
While Servetus being tormented in the flames (they placed a wreath strewn with sulphur on his head and used green wood to prolong the agony of his death), Servetus cried out with a loud voice, “Jesus Christ, You Son of the eternal God, have mercy upon me!”
Farel, [Calvin's side-kick] later noted that Servetus could have been saved if he had shifted the words to say, “Jesus Christ, You eternal Son of God, have mercy upon me!”
So starts centuries worth of blood baths and burnings at the stake at the hands of those that followed this murderer ...
“Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt. This is not laid down on human authority; it is God who speaks and prescribes a perpetual rule for his Church. It is not in vain that he banishes all those human affections which soften our hearts; that he commands paternal love and all the benevolent feelings between brothers, relations, and friends to cease; in a word, that he almost deprives men of their nature in order that nothing may hinder their holy zeal. Why is so implacable a severity exacted but that we may know that God is defrauded of his honor, unless the piety that is due to him be preferred to all human duties, and that when his glory is to be asserted, humanity must be almost obliterated from our memories?” ~ John Calvin Defence of the Orthodox Faith in the Sacred Trinity
In a later letter written to a marquis, he wrote:
“Honor, glory, and riches shall be the reward of your pains; but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those scoundrels, who stir up the people to revolt against us. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard.”
Another famous “reformer” that publicly and formally supported the persecution and murder of Servetus, Heinrich Bullinger, wrote to Calvin because even he was having reservations about his book:
“I only fear that your book will not be so acceptable to many of the more simple-minded persons, who, nevertheless, are attached both to yourself and to the truth, by reason of its brevity and consequent obscurity, and the weightiness of the subject. And, indeed, your style appears somewhat perplexed, especially in this work.”
In other words, 'Calvin, you come across as confounded and your arguments are unconvincing.'
Calvin wrote in reply:
“I am aware that I have been more concise than usual in this treatise. However, if I should appear to have faithfully and honestly defended the true doctrine, it will more than recompense me for my trouble. But though the candor and justice which are natural to you, as well as your love towards me, lead you to judge of me favorably, there are others who assail me harshly as a master in cruelty and atrocity, for attacking with my pen not only a dead man, but one who perished by my hands. Some, even not self-disposed towards me, wish that I had never entered on the subject of the punishment of heretics, and say that others in the like situation have held their tongues as the best way of avoiding hatred. It is well, however, that I have you to share my fault, if fault it be; for you it was who advised and persuaded me to it. Prepare yourself, therefore, for the combat.”
A professor of Greek Literature from nearby Basle, a translator of the Bible into French and Latin, Sebastian Castellion, wrote a pamphlet, “Whether Heretics Should be Persecuted,” completed three months after Calvin published his book justifying his persecution and execution of Servetus.
Castellion could not refrain from expressing horror and disgust at what Calvin had done in murdering another human being that disagreed with him:
“If those thus butchered had been, I will not say horses, but only swine, every prince would have considered he had sustained a grave loss.”
“However horribly these things may be,” Castellion wrote Calvin, “the sinners sin yet more horribly when they endeavor to wrap up their misdeeds in the raiment of Christ, and declare that they act in accordance with His will.”
Calvin was incensed: “A new heresy has been discovered,” he said. “We must stamp out this burst of hell-fire before it spreads over the surface of the earth.... Freedom of conscience is a doctrine of the devil.... Better to have a tyrant, however cruel, than permit everyone to do what he pleases.”
Did Castellion preach lawlessness? Not at all. He only said that one who murdered a man in the name of a doctrinal dispute cannot claim that Christ approved of this or taught him to do so. Hearing this did not please Calvin or allow him to rest in his compromised conscience.
Indeed, good to his word, Calvin did not permit anyone to do what did not please him. Castellion’s pamphlet made many truthful and excellent points, but no one was to hear them at that time because Calvin suppressed its publication. Nevertheless, Castellion’s message of truth hit home.
Castellion wrote to Calvin:
“Why do you do to others that which you would not endure if done to yourself? We are concerned with a dispute about religious matters; why, then, do you gag your adversaries?
“Your words and your weapons are only those common to every despotism; and they can but give you a temporal, not a spiritual dominance, a dominance based upon coercion, and not upon the love of God. Nor do I envy you your power and your weapons. I have other powers and other weapons--an imperturbable conviction of innocence, and trust in Him who will help me and give me grace. Even if, for a season, truth is suppressed by the blind ‘justice’ of this world, no one can permanently coerce truth. Let us cease to heed the judgment of a world which slew Christ; let us ignore an assize before which only the cause of violence proves victorious. The kingdom of God is not of this world.”
Castellion continued:
“It is absurd to use earthly weapons in spiritual warfare. The enemies of Christians are vices, and are to be overcome by virtues…. The cultivation of Christian character is neglected while Christians spend their time disputing speculative questions such as the nature of Christ, the Trinity, predestination, free will, the Eucharist and baptism. These are not necessary to salvation, and do not make a man better.”
Calvin, condemned by his own conscience, despised the liberty of conscience offered to others, which he had called a “diabolical doctrine.”
Castellion responded:
“What do we really mean by the term ‘heretic’? Whom are we entitled to call a heretic, without being unjust? I do not believe that all those termed heretics are really such. When I reflect on what a heretic really is, I can find no other criterion than that we are all heretics in the eyes of those who do not share our views.”
Castellion spoke of the foolishness of compelling men to abide in a certain doctrinal belief in God without having their own sure conviction:
“Those who wish to win over the largest possible number of supporters willy-nilly resemble a fool who has a barrel containing only a little wine, and fills it up with water in order to have more wine. The result is not to increase the wine, but to spoil the good wine which the fool already had. It is preposterous to assert that those who are forced to profess a belief really believe what they profess. Were they free to follow their own inclinations, they would say: ‘What I sincerely believe is that you are unjust and tyrannical, and that what you have compelled me to profess is false.’ Bad wine is not made good by forcing people to drink it.”
In another place, Castellion wrote:
“Men are so strongly convinced of the soundness of their opinions that they despise the opinions of others. Cruelties and persecutions are the outcome of arrogance, so that a man will not tolerate others’ differing in any way from his own views, although there are today almost as many views as there are persons. Yet there is not one sect which does not condemn all the others and wish to reign supreme. That accounts for banishments, exiles, incarcerations, burnings, hangings, and the blind fury of the tormentors who are continually at work, in the endeavor to suppress certain outlooks which displease our lords and masters.”
Calvin, justifying the murder of Servetus, said it was his mission to save Christianity - the gangrenous limb had to be amputated. To which Castellion replied, “There is nowhere in the gospels, nor yet in any moral treatise ever given to the world, the demand for such intolerance. Will you dare, in the last resort, to say that Jesus himself taught you to burn your fellow men? Who burns a man does not defend a doctrine, but only burns a man.”
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I tried to think of a name that probably all would know and could only come up David Wilkerson, a close friend to Keith Green and Leonard Ravenhill.
Now, if Wilkerson killed even just one person that didn't agree with his own beliefs - WHO on earth WOULD have FOLLOWED him?
Calvin's doctrine started with blood and ends with blood when one says that one can definitely kill themselves and still get to Heaven. Sure, if you can kill others wh]at's the difference - besides his OSAS in what's called TULIP lets him and his followers "Do as thou wilt".... [who said that?]
